Leisure agriculture booms in SW China province

Leisure agriculture and rural tourism in southwest China's Sichuan Province generated 100.8 billion yuan (15.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, ranking first in the industry across the nation, the provincial agriculture department announced Tuesday.

Leisure agriculture, which combines tourism and recreation, is booming in the province, where the industry is believed have originated. It is becoming increasingly popular as urbanites want to get back to nature and farmers benefit from providing affordable accommodation and catering.

In 2015, there were 31,000 leisure agriculture and rural tourism businesses in Sichuan, providing services for 320 million tourists, according to the department.

The province's income from the industry in 2015 posted an increase of 34 percent from the previous year, it said.

Tu Jianhua, deputy director of the department, said Sichuan encouraged the development of leisure agriculture and rural tourism by supporting farmers to establish family farms, cooperatives, and enterprises during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, which ended in 2015.

In 2015, the industry created 10.34 million jobs in the province, a year-on-year increase of 14.8 percent, Tu said.

By the end of 2015, Sichuan had built nearly 2,000 leisure farms and established more than 2,000 agricultural tourism areas such as theme parks and gardens.

Sichuan also rolled out the country's first provincial-level regulation on agriculture theme parks in October 2015. Endi