The objective of the project is to develop and implement vegetable production methods which help reduce considerably the inputs without compromising farmers' income and in the meantime contribute to a better environment while avoiding negative effects on the health of the rural population.

In addition, the project also aims at achieving higher prices, by improved marketing, for products which meet higher quality standards.

Strategy

1. ESIA environmental friendly technical packages

• To enhance agricultural product quality, to protect and improve the agricultural ecological environment, ESIA has developed a set of environmentally friendly techologies suitable for vegetable greenhouses in Northen China. The environmentally friendly techologies were developed for a series of vegetables, including tomato, cucumber, green pepper, eggplant and asparagus. By implementing an integrated technology package which allows an effective control of diseases and insects, the project has successfully achieved its goal of reducing inputs, upgrading quality, increasing profits and protecting the environment.

2. Agricultural extension mode

• Farmer Field School (FFS): As a new approach to improve the capacity of farmers and as a form of adult education in rural areas, FFSs train the farmers during the whole growing season of the crops by means of learning-by-doing in the field. Farmers are encouraged to make their own decisions, and use scientific methods to solve the problems in their daily work.

• Leading Farmer Activity: Different from the traditional demonstration where the leading farmers passively await neighbouring farmers' visits upon request, they take the initiative, thanks to the support from ESIA, to regularly organize the neighbouring farmers to visit each others greenhouses, share production experience and discuss about the technical problems of their own. Therefore, the farmers are given the opportunity to teach each other, and learn from their peers.

3. Foster the development of farmer cooperatives.

• The attractiveness of the environmental friendly technologies, however, would fade away unless the products which now fulfil higher quality standards are sold at a higher price. The major impediments to achieve this goal lie in the small production scale per farmer, the lack of uniform quality, marketing knowledge and bargaining power of the small farmers. Correspondingly, farmer cooperatives are considered to be an efficient means to solve the problems mentioned above. Since January 2008, a lot of efforts have been invested to promote the formation of new farmer cooperatives and to strengthen their marketing capacities.