Over the last 20 years, Chinese farmers have changed manure and sludge handling. For more than 2000 years, human and animal waste was recycled as fertilizer. Beginning in the mid-1980s high yielding crop varieties required more fertilizer. In the shift to chemical fertilizer rather than recycle, farmers began to just dump sewage and manure. China needs improved rural environmental infrastructure. The project goal was to develop a model for environmental technology transfer to rural China. The model development considered technical, legal/policy and cultural factors.
The 2006 5-year plan set a vision of the New Socialist Countryside. Campaigns were considered, such as the restoration of the ancient Grand Canal that flows through Shandong Province and the south-to-north water diversion. Connections were established with faculty at both an agricultural university and an agricultural academy. A technology, sand bioreactors, was introduced through lecture and lab demonstrations. The technology can be easily constructed using local construction practices and materials and is a compliment to the well-established biogas digester program.
A model for environmental technology transfer was developed. The model recognizes the difference between the agricultural universities and the academies. The universities, once under the Ministry of Agriculture, were moved in the 1990s to the Ministry of Education. The academies remain under Agriculture and have access to extension agents and on farm demonstrations in the countryside. Connections to the agricultural academies, language skills and an appropriate technology that furthers the 5-year plan and campaigns is needed to be successful in technology transfer to rural China.