College students innovate to address rural challenges

Huang He, who studies design at Tsinghua University, was not surprised when she came across a short video in which a lychee farmer in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region angrily stomped on his harvest after learning buyers were only willing to offer one yuan ($0.14) for each kilogram -- only 4 percent of the retail price in big cities.

"Poor sales is the painful enemy of farmers," said the 24-year-old.

Huang is among 15 Tsinghua graduate students who enrolled in an eight-week design program, which encourages participants to find innovative solutions to challenges in the agricultural sector.

The program, launched in March by Tsinghua and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, invited experts to help students in their design.

"I, along with my partners, designed a mobile app which gives advice to users on a healthy fruit diet, and allows users to reserve fruits directly from farmers, even before the fruits are ripe," she said.

She added the functions could help promote farmers' sales using e-commerce.

The rest of the participants also came up with solutions to challenges including food safety, farmer training and preserving agricultural heritage. Many of the solutions rely on the internet.

Nicholas Rosellini, UN Resident Coordinator in China, hailed the program and said innovation is crucial in solving problems in the agricultural sector and achieving the UN's goals of sustainable development.

"We must explore less traditional paths by incorporating new practices and determining the best-fit solutions through experimentation," he said.

To bring more business opportunities to rural residents, the central government decided in June to improve rural internet services and information technology infrastructure.

By the end of last year, 96 percent of administrative villages had access to broadband internet service, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

China has implemented the Broadband China strategy to ensure that more than 98 percent of villages have access to broadband by 2020.

As part of its Internet Plus Agriculture strategy aimed at boosting the rural economy, China plans to roll out guidelines for the standardization of packaging, transport logistics and quality of farm produce.