"I have worked in the village for over 400 days, given villagers lectures about agricultural science, and helped them increase crop output and create a better living environment," described Wang Mingyang, a postgraduate from Beijing-based China Agricultural University (CAU), in Gusheng village of Dali, Yunnan province. "During this time, their care for me and sharing of their past experiences added up, which enabled me to integrate textbook knowledge with practical experience in the fields and has also ignited my passion for contributing to building up China's strength in agriculture and for devoting my youth to speeding up the rural revitalization."

Wang is one of the students participating in a program which was set up by the College of Resources and Environmental Sciences of the CAU, known as the "Science and Technology Backyard." The program dispatches students to the frontlines of agricultural production. Postgraduate students with the program will spend one-third of their postgraduate time in classrooms and the other two-thirds in the field. 

Through the program, mentors and students spend time with local farmers, giving them instructions, showing them practical demonstrations, and providing technical services that cover the whole industry chain in order to realize a multi-win goal. 

Postgraduates from the China Agricultural University apply new technologies and plant new varieties of crops, helping to solve challenges faced by residents of Xihuaizhuang village in Yongledian township, Beijing's Tongzhou district, 10 kilometers away from the capital's beltway highway. The university launched the "Science and Technology Backyard" program, and Xihuaizhaung is one of 139 villages involved in the program among 24 provincial-level regions across the country. Under the guidance of their mentors, they have helped the villagers double their collective income and brought new hope for the development of local industries in the village. [Photo by Wang Yanfang/China.org.cn] 

Started in 2009 by Professor Zhang Fusuo, the program at first aimed to promote the application of scientific and technological advances on the frontlines. Now its goals, besides those mentioned above, have been added to training high-level agricultural talents and serving rural and agricultural modernization, which continues to make progress in these areas, according to the college. 

Green agricultural development, which needs a profound change in people's attitude to agriculture, will make a major contribution to accelerating the modernization and sustainable development of agriculture. One of the main features of modern agriculture is eco-environmental protection. Therefore, green development is a strategic choice. 

Over these years, the program has introduced over 200 green agricultural production techniques to the agricultural frontlines, and two articles have been published in the science journal Nature. 

Hao Jiaxuan, another student in Gusheng village, studies how to improve the environment of Erhai Lake, facing the village. He promotes healthier lifestyles among villagers, which means teaching them to reduce their intake of salt and fats and to eat more green vegetables and fruits. This in turn should help to reduce high nitrogen and phosphorus in the area's wastewater, which cause algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle. 

"At the beginning, the villagers did not quite understand our efforts to instruct them to classify garbage and change their lifestyle," said Hao, "but after six months, villagers began to enjoy the benefits of a healthier lifestyle and gave us more and more support."

"At present, mentors and students from over 20 institutes are stationed in the village. Besides the tutors with CAU, I can receive diversified guidance from tutors with other institutes, and I think that is one of the reasons why I achieved something good," added Hao.  

More than 700 postgraduate students have passed through the program, which has also provided support for the cultivation of over 3,000 postgraduates with 68 institutes across the country.  

According to the college, they aim to promote green development and surmount hurdles and innovate technologies with local farmers for the purpose of forming simple, easy, and reproducible approaches to increasing crop output and providing scientific and technological support for green agricultural development. 

A postgraduate from the China Agricultural University livestreams and promotes products from Xihuaizhuang village in Yongledian township, Beijing's Tongzhou district, 10 kilometers away from the capital's beltway highway. [Photo by Wang Yanfang/China.org.cn]

Since the beginning of the program, the university has developed 139 Science and Technology Backyard projects in 24 provincial-level regions across the country, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Overseas students have also joined the program to learn about the technologies involved so that they can contribute to agricultural development in their hometowns. In 2022, a demonstration village for agricultural development and poverty reduction under the backyard program was unveiled in Malawi, according to People's Daily. In the village, students seek technological innovations and conduct demonstrations and experiments together with local farmers in a bid to improve farmers' agricultural production skills and increase crop yields. 

China feeds nearly one-fifth of the world's population with less than 9% of the world's arable land. These words were once known by every Chinese person and urged them on. In the new era, the country's millennia-old agricultural civilization has shined new light on these processes.