Pingnan famers learn tea planting skills

( chinadaily.com.cn )

Updated: 2014-03-14

"I learned about how to judge the quality of tea," said Zhang Chenyong, a Pingnan farmer listening to a lecture at Ningde Vocational and Technical College. Zhang learned how to plant tea bushes by attending the lectures provided by the provincial government free of charge. He can also get a certificate recognized by the country.

The participants are recommended by the local agriculture authorities. They are all under the age of 45, with high school diplomas and rich experience in tea planting. In addition, they have to be directors of a tea planting organization or an individual planter with high annual yields.

The classes are a combination of face-to-face lectures, on-line learning and field instruction. The face-to-face instruction usually lasts for ten days and are scheduled when farmers aren't busy with their planting.

All the selected farmers are exempted from entrance examinations and do not need to pay tuition fees, or fees for textbooks. They get subsidies when attending face-to-face training. After the classes, those who pass the examination can get a diploma demonstrating they have graduated with a major in tea.

"We made great efforts to plan how to make the classes practical," said Lin Xuemao, dean of the Teaching Department of Ningde Vocational and Technical College. We have different arrangements for each semester. For example, we taught computers, and E-commerce this semester and arranged for the students to visit a demonstration tea garden. Next semester, we will have different arrangements.

We are working hard to provide useful knowledge and skills to our students and make the classes an EMBA class for farmers.

Fujian province has been working hard on improving the skills of farmers across the province. It has allocated 10 million yuan ($1.63 million) to subsidize a total of 12,000 farmers and directors of planting organizations to receive education at vocational schools.

The province aims to cultivate a new generation of farmers who take agriculture as their course and earn money from agriculture, who have some resources, have some professional skills and have some extra money for investment.

So far, 224 farmers have been selected to learn about tea planting in Ningde Vacational and Technical College, 111 of whom are from Ningde city.

By Wang Yifei and eidted by Brian Anthony Salter