The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture is setting standards for 13 occupations in the agricultural sector and these standards will be put into force before the end of this year, a ministry official said Wednesday.

Zhang Ye, section director under the Personnel Department of the ministry, said that the move aims to improve the professional quality of employees in the agricultural sector and accelerate the industrialization and standardization of the sector.

The occupations include seeds processing, fertilizer formula making, farming tool service, bee and poultry raising, and animal product quality check, among others.

Zhang noted that these occupations are all characterized with a large sum of employees and the utilization of complicated technologies, and are of great importance to food security.

The standards are not compulsive in terms of access to the sector but agricultural enterprises can train and assess employees according to them, Zhang said.

The ministry has set standards for 32 agricultural occupations in two batches before.

With the promulgation of the standards, the ministry will launch a series of training programs to improve the technical levels of agricultural employees, said the official.

(Xinhua News Agency July 15, 2004)