Villagers plant trees (COURTESY)

Luo Decai’s life has totally changed in the past eight years. His annual income has soared to more than 100,000 yuan ($15,780) from just 4,000 yuan ($631.2) he earned in 2014. Moreover, his family has moved from a shabby old house to a new 300-square-meter two-story house equipped with a smart home system.

The change in Luo’s life and fortunes is a direct result of the economic development of his hometown, Tangyue Village in Pingba District, Anshun City, Guizhou Province in southwest China. In just a few years, Tangyue has transformed from a national-level impoverished village to a well-off one, and is now striving to build itself into a digital village.

Digital rural management

Before 2014, Tangyue Village had 600 people living in 138 impoverished households. That situation has changed since China launched its targeted poverty alleviation campaign in 2013. Through reform of the village-level governance system and modernization of agriculture, the village was lifted out of poverty, with the life of Luo and his fellow villagers significantly improved.

But for Zuo Wenxue, Secretary of the Tangyue Village Branch of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress, the changes were not enough. In order to better realize rural revitalization, he decided to turn Tangyue into a digital village.

In the second half of 2020, with the support of Guizhou Rural Credit Union and China Unicom, the village launched the “Smart Tangyue” platform, which was completed in eight months. The platform, available as a mobile app and website, consists of seven sections, comprising Smart Party Affairs, Smart Village Affairs, Smart Agriculture, Smart Tourism, Smart Education, Smart Medical Care, and Smart Finance. Big data, Internet, artificial intelligence and cloud computing are applied to improve rural governance. “The platform went online in last June, and the response from villagers is very good,” Zuo told ChinAfrica.

“On the homepage of the platform, we can see a panorama of the whole village and click on a particular spot to check whether the sanitation of a household reaches the standards,” Zuo said, adding that the platform can be used to improve the management of the village environment. Now Tangyue is a national-level scenic spot with picturesque scenery, attracting more and more tourists. Luo rents a 10-square-meter shop to sell braised pork in the village, and his business is booming.

“Villagers can post messages on the platform, learn about relevant business policies and procedures and offer suggestions, and relevant village officials respond in a timely manner,” Zuo said. Furthermore, “We leverage big data to manage the village, reducing the cost of village management,” Zuo explained. The village used to have more than a dozen officials for its administrative management, but now only six are enough.

The platform uses a points system to drive its usage and reward the villagers for their good work. Villagers can earn points by logging in daily to learn about the policies and notices published on the platform and report their good deeds. They can redeem their points for daily necessities at offline supermarkets in the village. “The points system encourages villagers’ good behaviors, and helps improve the conditions in the village,” Zuo said.

Villa-style houses are common in the small village which has gone from rags to riches (COURTESY)

Improved service delivery

“With this platform, villagers can handle daily business on their mobile phones at home, which brings convenience to their lives,” Zuo said.

The platform contains a link to all the information about services, such as government service, health care, living allowances, bank account inquiry and loan application. For example, in the past, villagers had to go to the bank for loans, but now they can handle financial services such as loans, repayments, and remittances on this platform. “It saves villagers’ time queuing up at banks and simplifies approval procedures,” Zuo said.

In order to teach villagers to better use this platform, village officials organize digital training for them. Zuo said, “We invited professional teachers to train them. Last year, we had a two-day training which was attended by some villagers, and others will receive the training in May.”

“This platform is also helpful for improving information transparency in the village,” Zuo said. In the past, the official notices were only posted on the village bulletin board. However, one notice would be covered by a new one within a few days. If villagers did not see it in time, they would miss important information. Now, the village uploads the announcements to the “Smart Village Affairs” section of the platform, which can not only ensure that all of the relevant information is available all the time, but also make village affairs more transparent. Some announcements have been read 2,889 times, while the total population of the village is 3,068.

“Villagers’ response to the platform is good. However, it needs further improvements, and it will take around two or three years to be fully developed,” Zuo said.

Smart agriculture

Besides improving management and providing more services, this platform is also helping introduce smart agriculture.

Zuo said the village is building agricultural big data, which will facilitate digital management of farmland. “We install soil sensors, cameras and other equipment on the farms to collect relevant data. Through the analysis of agricultural data such as soil moisture, plant diseases and insect pests, crop growth and yield, it can help villagers to accurately apply appropriate amount of water, fertilizer and chemical pesticides to the crops, making agricultural production smarter and more precise. The initial application of agricultural big data will be carried out in June this year,” Zuo revealed.

In fact, Tangyue Village is just a microcosm of China’s efforts to develop smart agriculture. In February this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and nine other government departments jointly issued the Digital Rural Development Action Plan (2022-25), which proposed smart agricultural innovation and development to accelerate the development of smart agriculture. Thanks to this transformation from “relying on experience” to “relying on data,” it is estimated that the scale of China’s digital agricultural economy will reach close to 1.3 trillion yuan ($204.49 billion) in 2025, accounting for 15 percent of the added value of agriculture.