Located at the southernmost tip of the Chinese mainland, Hainan is the country's largest province in terms of the area of the combined land and maritime territory. It is the largest special economic zone in China and the only one encompassing an entire province.
Agriculture, which is one of the key sectors of the province, bolsters its economic growth. Its location, tropical climate and natural resources offer the perfect conditions for its tropical agriculture to develop. In 1999, Hainan unveiled its plan to construct an ecological province and began the work in the same year. In January 2010, a document titled "Suggestions of the State Council on Boosting the Construction of Hainan into an International Tourism Island" was published, bringing it new challenges and opportunities for the eco-agriculture of Hainan.
Implementing the directives from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, the Hainan provincial government deepened the supply-side structural reform in agriculture, and incentivized its agricultural sharing economy. Sharing villages has been a bold move for the development of eco-agriculture in the province. It supported villages, farms and bases through establishing favorable conditions to improve infrastructure, industrial foundations, public services and the environment, so as to improve production, living environment and the ecology, integrate primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and develop agriculture, culture and tourism. The province has actively explored and promoted new models, industries and paths of economic and social growth in rural areas.
The Haitang Bay Paddy Field National Park is a large recreation area of agro-tourism that Hainan's Sanya city designed based on local conditions. Now let's go to the park and have a look.
One of the comparative advantages of Hainan is its tropical ecosystem that is ideal for all types of crops. Therefore, the Chinese government is turning the province into a modern and ecological agricultural base. The national park, combining entertainment, tourism, and science and technology, is exactly one of the models.
In essence, the park is a tourist area of paddy fields with an area of more than 130 hectares, within which are the Yuan Longping experimental rice field, an agricultural museum, an entertainment area and a parking area for motor homes. The national park has developed based on the principle that farmers are the proprietors and never leave the land, while demonstrating to the international community the geographic advantages of Hainan in agricultural reproduction and China's scientific and technological progress in growing rice.
The province is now building an international tourism island, and moving forward with the plan to develop tourism throughout Hainan and building beautiful villages. Hainan appears confident that its model of developing eco-agriculture will enlighten China's farmers toward new ideas and innovations.