Agriculture is a big part of Chinese life and the Chinese economy. Anhui Province is the center of several rural reforms. Reporter Xu Zhaoqun travelled to Anhui to see how farmers are now using arable land in different ways as they adapt to changing policies.

At this time of the year, Gao Xing's only job is to inspect the rice flourishing in his 40 hectares of fields.

Seven years ago, Gao was no different from any other farmers in this province. The yield on the small patch of field assigned to his family was only a few thousand yuan a year. Now, he is the richest farmer in the village, managing the largest area of rice fields, most of which are "circulated" from his neighbors.

Gao Xing said, "After paying the circulation fee to my fellow villagers, my income is still considerable. it's almost twenty times what I earned ten years ago. Intensive farming is much better than individual ones."

Gao is not the richest in the area with his traditional way of farming.

A company signed a land contract with Gao's neighbouring village and set up a farm raising tortoise, which is traditionally considered very nutritious and tonic, especially for man.

The males in the village dig more pools in their fields, for raising more tortoises, and their wives are all employed by the company to look after Jiaobai, an aquatic vegetable much more expensive than grains.

Ms Wang, villager of Sanhe Town of Anhui Province, said, "Being an employee is of course much better than planting rice. I just come and leave on time, get paid every month, don't have to worry about the details."

The corporatization of agriculture is indeed bringing much more wealth to both farmers and the firms.

Su Qi, Manager of Sanhe ECO Base, said, "The farmers get subsidized by the government. They are also paid for circulating their fields to our company, and they receive a salary by working for us on the fields. Some idle lands which belong to those migrant workers are also reused."

But worries still exist.

The ecology is being improved. Egrets begin to settle down here. Egrets eat Jiaobai, but farmers can do nothing to stop them. Doing harm to the wildlife is illegal.

Crop raising is not profitable enough, unless the land is used for other purposes, and it means farming lands are becoming less and less.

This is not an issue for any individual farmer, but it really is for the entire country.

Reporter Xu Zhaoqun said, "This story in Anhui province is the final of my ten stories in the series 'China on the move'. Most of the previous nine stories were about the rapid development in the eastern provinces. But Anhui, next to prosperous neighbours, like Zhejiang and Jiangsu, fails to make top ten in the country's GDP list. The reason I chose Anhui as my destination is the province's noted agricultural reform. this has brought unprecedented changes to the people, and China can't achieve full development without a successful reform in the rural sector. In the last twenty days we traveled to six provinces and one municipality. It's so encouraging to find lots of things the People's Republic can be proud of. And it's even more encouraging to see the people are still not content with all that has been achieving. This is exactly what we want to show in the series: China is on the move."

(CCTV September 25, 2009)