Twenty farmers from Fuping county, Shaanxi province, will enter a technical college in September for three years of agricultural training to improve their production.

It is the first time the province has admitted professional farmers to college.

According to the Agricultural Bureau of Fuping county, the 20 are all large-scale farmers. Their ages range from 22 to 50. There are two women.

The bureau said farmers who want to study in college should meet two conditions: completion of a high school education and being a professional farmer who wants to maximize profit by using agriculture as their main industry.

The 20 farmers will study at Yangling Vocational and Technical College, which said they successfully passed the exams and interviews.

According to the college, 28 professional farmers took part in the exams for mathematics, Chinese and English, and 20 passed.

Yu Zhengzhou, 50, the oldest of the farmers, said he manages a 2-hectare apple orchard and wanted to improve his agricultural technology.

"I have planted apples for more than 20 years and have some knowledge about how to plant them, but new technologies can help improve the yield and quality of fruit, so I want to study them systematically in college," Yu said.

The bureau said the county government will pay the expenses of the farmers, and the college has planned a special course that includes with four days a week in regular classes and three days a week in farm management.

(China Daily 06/30/2016 page5)