"It's time to treat your sweet wormwood plants to stop them getting mildew..." This text message to the cellphone of a farmer in southwest China advised him what pesticide to use to prevent mildew forming on his plants.

"I receive text messages on my mobile phone from a horticultural expert," said Guo Kebing, a farmer in the suburbs of Chongqing Municipality. He planted 33 hectares of sweet wormwood this year.

In the past, he suffered losses of up to 10,000 yuan (1,265 U.S. dollars) for failing to effectively prevent the mildew, a disease which damages crop harvests.

Like Guo, more and more Chinese farmers will benefit from an agricultural information service website which was officially launched on Thursday in Chongqing, after a month of tests.

The "www.12582.com" website was set up by China Mobile Communications Corporation, the biggest telecommunications operator in the country, at a cost of 100 million yuan (about 12.6 million U.S. dollars).

The website sends sound and text messages -- in Chinese, Tibetan, Uygur and Mongol -- about planting techniques and farm produce.

"It only costs Guo two yuan (0.25 U.S. dollars) a month for a service package on agricultural techniques, labor market information and produce prices," said Wang Jianzhou, president of China Mobile.

Farmers can receive technical guidance about crop planting and husbandry, and release information about supply or demand for their own farm produce on the platform, according to Wang.

Cao Dengzhen, a farmer in Liangping County of Chongqing, used the website to join a local cotton-picking group to go to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomus Region, a cotton planting base in China.

The group was organized by the local government to help farmers make up losses suffered this summer following the worst drought to hit the area in fifty years.

Cao earned more than 2,000 yuan (250 U.S. dollars) in Xinjiang.

Farmers in other provinces or regions have also benefited from the website.

"After a month of trial operation in twelve western provinces or regions, the website can now be accessed by all farmers in China," Wang said.

The website already has 900,000 users.

Statistics show that 97 percent of China's 680,000 administrative villages have telephones. The figure will hit 100 percent next year.

There are more and more cell phone users in China's rural areas where the total population is about 800 million.

More land lines and mobile phones will give farmers greater access to agricultural information services, experts say.

China will institute preferential telecommunication fees in rural areas so as to make it easier for farmers to afford the information services, according to the Ministry of Information Industry.