By Murray Clive
I left Beijing and I've traveled north west and I've found myself in this beautiful blue sky city, its called Yinchuan, it's the capital of Ningxia. And the reason i'm here is to suss out rural china. Basically to figure out whats been going on with the farmers. And I've found one, this place is called Pingluoxian. And this webpage that I've found is actually advertising products that they have on their farm. So these guys have access to internet which is good news.

Ningxia is a small automonous province in north western China, nestled between Shaanxia and Gansu and hanging below Inner Mongolia. The Yellow river cuts through the province providing much needed irrigation to an otherwise dry, dusty land.

Ningxia is an important agricultural player in China. There are about 4 million farmers and over 19 million acres of cultivated land where rice, wheat, corn and all kinds of fruits, especially wolfberries are grown. As I wandered through the farmlands I could tell that the environment was perfect for farming not just because it was so lush but because the air was so clean and soft. There is almost no pollution and at night you can actually see a few stars. Coming from Beijing, this is quite something!

We are off to see our first family now, in order to establish how the last 30 yrs has changed their lives. But its not all gonna be pomp and ceremony because today they are celebrating a birthday. One of their little einy scheinies is turning one. Which reminds me I should probably pick something up, the real question is: what do you buy a one year old kid in China?

We've arrived in this little village, as you can see everybody here is in a good mood. I think they're celebrating the beautiful day. Four beautiful dancers and some traditional instruments over here. I'm not sure what they're singing about, but it's an interesting sound.

So I've just been doing some shopping and I have here some candy which I'm sure will go down well and in my bag I have a red envelope filled with lots of lovely money.

The Hui, like most Chinese people, are very hospitable. Every household I visited warmly welcomed me in and then offered me a steaming cup of Babao tea. And soon after came the snacks which, translated into English and sounding rather odd were: deep fried wheat twists, twisted fritters and deep fried dough-cakes.

Machang Village in Pingluo County is just north of Yinchuan. It's great for growing rice because it's flat country, the soil is fertile and the Yellow River soaks the land on its snaky path through. Because of these idyllic conditions coupled with the rich source of information provided by the Internet, farmers can get the most out of their land and grow an even better crop.

This is the Internet center. I'm hoping to play a little Counter Strike while no one is looking.

So we've got these guys over here and they raise sheep and these guys over here they raise turkeys and she has a rice field and that guy over there drives a tractor and she is the local computer expert. Now I'm gonna see if I can find some wolf berries because they've been putting wolf berries in my tea and they're really delicious, they're apparently really healthy and so I'm gonna check to see how much a kilogram of wolf berries will cost me.

According to stats, there are about 6500 farming related websites in China. The webistes are very useful for farmers as they provide information on things like public sanitation, weather conditions, growing techniques as well as market prices and trends.

This website is quite extensive, whatever you need related to farming you'll probably find it right here. I'm now gonna ask these guys if they mind if I come over to their house to see how they do their farming see their animals just check out the scene.

So they've got quite an intricate alarm system set up here. They've got the sensor alarm that just went off when I came in and they've got another sensor alarm at the back which is setup near the animals as well as this cctv camera which has I don't know how many different screen shots but you get a fairly extensive view of what's going on around the back.

Advances in technology start in the city and then over time ripple out into the towns and then villages. Mr. Ma is another farmer who I visited in order to see how the Internet ripple has washed over his life. In the 80's he had just a few livestock and the number changed little over the years. But now, since he's been hooked up, he's raising as many as 40 cattle and 200 sheep. Just looking around at his house, one gets the feeling that things are truly going well for him.

Everyday Mr. Ma's son checks out the latest news on breeding. In this way, Mr. Ma is able to consider and adopt all the best techniques on raising animals, like the best kinds of food, the most effecient use of corral space, disease detection and prevention. He can also get the latest on market prices for his animals.

First world countries around the globe have been developing and improving agricultural methods for decades. China, because it has always lacked the techology, is at an infantile stage. So now, with the farmers getting connected, they can not only see how a fellow farmer is growing rice two counties across, they can learn how farmers harvest corn in Conneticut, rear cattle in Kobe and grow grapes in Kaapstad.

Mr. He is a farmer who raises guinea fowl, turkies and red geese. He hasn't had many opportunities to study formally and he's not too clued up with what's happening in the new Information Age, but through long years of on the job training he's learnt much and has become quite an expert at what he does. He thirsts for more extensive knowledge on breeding but the lack of technology has always impeded his efforts to learn more.

The local governments have arranged IT experts to help farmers not only understand how to access the Internet but also to develop their own websites in order to advertise products and share general farming information with others.

In order to encourage farmers to make use of the Internet center, it is a totally free service. When I went in to have a look I was immediately struck with how enthusiastic farmers were in learning about the web and how fast they realized it's incredible benefits. Technology can be a scary thing when you're not accustomed to it, but the farmers I met were fearless and picked up the basic skills with relative ease.

Mrs. Yang is now 42. With only a high school education, she has managed, because of her hardwork and intellect, to become chairwoman of the Riyue Xinmi Company. In 2000 she carried out a complete restructuring within the company. A new processing plant was built so that 80% of the factory could be devoted to rice production. At the same time she took the initiative by installing computers with broadband Internet. Back then this kind of technology was a complete novelty.

In a market economy if there is no information sharing, then the producers have no idea what to produce, how much to produce and at what price. In 2007, Mrs. Yang experienced this problem when he invested a lot of money into producing white rice. When she went to market she realized that her rice was too expensive . She jumped on the Internet to find out why. It turns out there was cheaper rice coming in from the North East. Consequently she was able to refix her prices.

The agricultural information service network continues to expand across China. The goal for 2015 is to set-up Internet centers in 2000 county towns which would provide Internet access to an impressive 140 million households.

I hope we've been able to shed some light on the changes that have been taking place in rural china. I'm quite surprised and impressed that so many poorer people have access to Internet. If you ever do make it to Ningxia make you try the baobao tea, it tastes delicious and I've been told repeatedly that it'll make you live a little longer and you would remain fit for your desert journey in the coming days.