Over the last three decades, China’s agriculture sector has been transformed from the traditional
to modern practice through the effective deployment of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs). Information processing and dissemination have played a
critical role in this transformation process. Many studies in relation to agriculture information
services have been conducted in China, but few of them have attempted to provide a
comprehensive review and analysis of different information dissemination models and
their applications. This paper aims to review and identify the ICT based information dissemination
models in China and to share the knowledge and experience in applying
emerging ICTs in disseminating agriculture information to farmers and farm communities
to improve productivity and economic, social and environmental sustainability. The paper
reviews and analyzes the development stages of China’s agricultural information dissemination
systems and different mechanisms for agricultural information service development
and operations. Seven ICT-based information dissemination models are identified
and discussed. Success cases are presented. The findings provide a useful direction for
researchers and practitioners in developing future ICT based information dissemination
systems. It is hoped that this paper will also help other developing countries to learn from
China’s experience and best practice in their endeavor of applying emerging ICTs in agriculture
information dissemination and knowledge transfer