The township of Gensi – located in Taixing city in East China's Jiangsu province – is exploring a new agriculture pattern.
This is integrating family farms with cooperatives, to jointly form a community of interests and increase farmers' incomes.
In recent years, the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the township has boosted the cultivation of new units of agricultural business. The family farm is one type and at present there are 86 family farms in the township.
However, the single family farm can have difficulties in riding out risks, as well as in expanding product sales channels and creating brand advantages.
So, the township has established diverse cooperatives according to different types of family farms. For example, for areas focusing on vegetable farming, it is deemed to be good to develop vegetable processing, wholesale sales and other types of farmers' cooperatives – to provide market sales and unified distribution services for family farms.
What's more, family farms are being encouraged to build relationships with local farmers, through shareholdings, order sales, labor services and other ways.
It is said that the new agricultural business units have helped farmers in more than 300 households every year, with the annual income of every household increasing by about 2,000 yuan ($291) on average.