A few kilometers from the massive new dam, claimed to be the worlds biggest civil engineering project and due to create a 660 kilometer reservoir along the Yangtse River, the farming remains substantially the same as it was 30, 50, or perhaps 100 years ago. The dam is scheduled to be completed in 2009 and will then, it is said, provide water for areas to the north where there is a shortage, generate huge amounts of electricity and remove the threat of flooding downstream.
The scale of the scheme is mind boggling and will be life changing for many Chinese. But the farmers around the town of Yichang where the dam is sited will notice hardly any difference.
The Farmers Weekly Study Tour has just spent the day looking at the almost completed dam and at the farming nearby. The contrast is difficult to take in.
On the one hand a US$25billion investment over 30 years. On the other narrow rows of wheat and barley inter-sown with cotton plants. Sometimes they inter-plant with rice or water melons but the width of the grain strips remain the same at less than a metre - because that is the size of the cutter bar on their tiny combine harvester.
The Chinese government is trying to mechanise the farming by grant aiding machinery purchases by 20%. The State also provides agronomy advice free of charge and "strongly advises" farmers what to grow. Indeed the State holds the whip hand in that it owns all the land and farmers have to enter into agreements each year to continue farming their piece of it. It is clearly good land too, growing excellent crops.
If farmers choose to grow water melons, garlic or onions, for instance, they pay a rent of the equivalent of £60/ac. If they grow wheat, barley or oilseeds they can have the land rent free for these are the staples that the government wants produced in quantity to maintain as high a degree of self sufficiency as possible.
But with an average of only one third of an acre each such generosity by the government makes little difference to the way of life of the hard working farmers. The FW party felt, despite the problems back in Britain, that they were relatively fortunate after all.