With 433,900 mu (about 28,927 hectares) of arable lands, Yizhang County is a major grain producer in Hunan Province and beyond and can produce 50 billion kilograms of grain. 

 

In order to realize the full coverage of farmland management and protection, Yizhang County invited the third-party institution to develop an APP, which enables 3,850 field chiefs at county, town, village and group levels to keep a watchful eye on the real-time situation of arable lands through mobile phones.

 

The APP boasts functions like on-site positioning, reporting and viewing of land types. Once the village or group field chiefs notice wrongdoings like arable land wasting and illegal occupation of cultivated lands, they can inform the superior field chiefs through the APP. 

 

After receiving the messages, the county and town chiefs will urge relevant personnel to eliminate the illegal land destruction through the APP. At present, 21 cases of illegal occupation of cultivated lands have been curbed, with 146-mu (about 9.73 hectares) land reclaimed.  

 

The use of the APP is among the measures to implement the “field chief system”, and Yizhang County also registers some basic information like the reasons and duration of abandoned land.

 

A set of strict assessment systems will be carried out to deal with the illegal occupation and wasting of farmland due to dereliction of duty. The field chiefs will be appointed in swaths of responsibility fields, and the APP will be upgraded for real-time inspection and monitoring of the cultivated lands in the county.