Shanghai has taken the first step in a major new effort to modernize its agriculture, improve the lives of farmers and equalize government infrastructure spending between rural and suburban areas.

The development blueprint, endorsed on Saturday by the Shanghai Committee of the Communist Party of China, sketches out the intent to build a "new socialist countryside" by 2020 that fosters greater prosperity in the farm community.

The plan's major provisions call for increasing financial support for agribusiness, better training for farmers in modern agricultural methods, greater funding for transport, environmental protection and communications in suburban areas and improved social security for those who work the land.

"We will concentrate on projects that are closely related to farmers' fundamental interests," Party Secretary Chen Liangyu told a plenary meeting of the committee.

He urged committee members to take a more balanced view on the joint development of the 600-square-kilometer downtown and the 6,000 square kilometers of rural land.

The proposal encourages municipal government to increase its financial support for rural projects and raise the level of infrastructure spending to make it equal with funding for the downtown.

Much of the new investment will be used to build a better public transport system, including a bus network among villages, more roads and several Metro lines linking the suburbs to the downtown.

One of the biggest projects is a connection between Pudong and Chongming Island that features a 8.9-kilometer tunnel and a 10.3-kilometer bridge to be finished by 2010. The project also includes an extension of the under-construction Metro No. 9 to Chongming.

In the proposal's environmental protection area, the government is urged to conserve historic structures, including bridges, old villages and canal towns, and help develop rural tourism, including bed-and-breakfast inns.

The municipality is also asked to spend more on modern technologies to grow grain, vegetables, rapeseed and other crops.

Also under the proposal, municipal government is encouraged to build a rural medical insurance system similar to the one in the downtown and to subsidize vocational training for suburban students.

(Shanghai Daily July 10, 2006)