Auburn, July 24---As their van rolls to a halt on the first stop in the Lee County farm tour, the Chinese sit patiently as, Li Liqui alights from the van.

Then, as the tour begins, they are careful where to stand to ensure that Li is closest to the speaker and the delegation’s interpreter.

As the division chief and senior agronomist of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture’s National Agro-Tech Extension and Service Center, he supervises 400,000 agronomists throughout China -- that’s right, 400,000 agronomists.

Yes, China and the United States are two vastly different countries – a fact Li emphasizes later in the day during an interview. Even so, China is determined to have something the United States has taken for granted throughout its 200-year history: a free-market economy.

That is why Li and the 11 other agronomists and agricultural scientists are visiting Alabama: to learn all they can about the American farming system and the role Cooperative Extension plays in sustaining it.

"We have some major challenges because our group used to work closely with the government, and that’s not very good for a market-oriented economy," Li says, speaking through an interpreter.

Under the old socialist command economy, Li says, Chinese farmers planted whatever the government requested. With the switch to a market-oriented economy, that has changed: Farmers now have the freedom to plant whatever they want.

Unfortunately, Li says, farmers still face the challenge of acquiring what he describes as a free-market "mindset."

That is why Li finds the east Alabama farm tour so valuable: It helped him gain firsthand knowledge of how American farmers respond to the day-to-day challenges of a market economy. As he sees it, Chinese farmers must acquire this market-oriented mindset in order for China to complete its successful conversion to a market economy.

"The mindset is the most important thing," Li says. "Our farmers must have this mindset in order to change," he says. "After that, we need the information and technology to follow through with this change."

Organized and conducted by Dr. Jeff Clary, coordinator of the Lee County Extension office, the tour acquainted the Chinese with several major areas of Southern farming.

"What we were trying to do was complement what the Chinese had already seen from their previous tours and to give them a taste for the scope of programs offered by the local Extension office," Clary says.

With this in mind, he chose four "completely different" farming operations in order to give the Chinese an appreciation of the different sizes and wide diversity of farming operations common throughout Alabama.

During the first stop on their tour, the Chinese were treated to a wagon tour of Lakeside Christmas Tree Farm in Crawford. Later that morning, the delegation also toured the 600-acre Ingram Farm, which has been operated by the family since the 1830s.

Following a visit to the Lawler Angus Farm still later that morning, the delegation was provided with their first taste of Southern cuisine: a catered barbecue meal at Three Pigs Barbecue Restaurant in Beauregard, compliments of the local Alfa Farmers Cotton Committee.

Clary capped the day’s tour with a visit to D and K Growers, a container nursery producer in Waverly.

Reflecting on the tour, Clary believes it gave the Chinese a better grasp of the global forces at work throughout the world.

"When I talked about cotton, they understood because they raise cotton to compete within a global economy just as we do," he says. "As we improve understanding among other major agricultural producers such as China and Brazil, I think we will become more effective in getting our products where they need to be."

Li agrees. He believes economic globalization is a fact of life that no longer can be ignored. China’s conversion into a market economy, painful as it has been, has been necessary in order for her to assume her place alongside the United States as one of the world’s global economic powerhouses.

"To be part of this world and to anticipate this global economy, China has had to open her door and to welcome these new things," he says.