China has made remarkable advancements in the development of its agricultural sector in 2024, featuring government efforts to arouse the enthusiasm of farmers for production and application of modern agricultural technology.
Throughout the country, various regions have progressively broadened their modernization efforts, collaboratively enhancing technological and institutional innovations.
China's grain production in 2024 is expected to exceed 700 billion kilograms in annual output for the first time, achieving the "more than 650-billion kilogram" target set at the start of the year, and representing a decade of stable production at or above the 650-billion-kilogram mark.
"The reason why China's grain production has remained at a high level for an extended period and has achieved new leaps fundamentally lies in the thorough implementation of the strategy of land conservation and technological method application. We have ensured that the total acreage of farmland remains above the specified red line, and have safeguarded seed industry security. We have thus ensured local governments are motivated to keep a focus on grain production and farmers are motivated to grow grains, safeguarding food security across all sectors, processes and stages," said Tu Shengwei, researcher with the Macroeconomic Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) -- Chinas' top economic planner.
Behind the high-level increase in grain production are the continuous breakthroughs in agricultural technology.
The national inventory of agricultural machinery has topped 200 million units, with the deployment of terminal equipment using China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) exceeding 2.2 million units. The overall mechanization rate for crop planting, cultivation, and harvesting has risen to more than 74 percent, with cultivation of the three primary staple crops now largely mechanized. Underpinning the surge in grain production is the steady growth in the number of new agricultural business entities. To date, there are more than 2.2 million farmers' cooperatives and nearly 4 million family farms nationwide.
"There are 1.09 million socialized agricultural service entities across the country, serving an area of over 2.1 billion mu (about 140.07 million hectares) annually for more than 94 million smallholder farmers," said Han Yijun, chief of the Industry Economy Common Technology Innovation Team under the National Modern Agricultural Industry Technology System.
In addition to ensuring the safety and high-quality development of grain production, a broader agricultural modernization has also developed rapidly across China. In promoting the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, science and technology is the primary productive force, and reform is the fundamental driving force.
So far this year, China has continued to explore the development of an enduring mechanism for overseeing the quality of high-standard farmland, and innovate the approaches and tools of supervision.
"We also can observe the land through the space and also can use the UAV, and we combine with sensors on the ground. So we're monitoring the crop from the space, sky and ground," said Guo Tao, deputy general manager, PIESAT Information Technology Co., Ltd.
The development of modern agriculture is not just a change in the traditional primary industry. It entails integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
In the year, all regions across China have actively made efforts to foster new industries and business models in rural areas, transforming "local products" into "trendy goods."
In contemporary rural China, over 100 million parcels are dispatched and received daily, with express delivery services extending to more than 90 percent of administrative villages in the country. Nationwide, approximately 14.7 percent of villages, or half a million rural households, are involved in leisure agriculture and rural tourism, receiving over 3 billion tourist visits per year.
So far this year, the income generated by leisure agriculture has amounted to 840 billion yuan (115 billion U.S. dollars). A growing number of livable and thriving rural communities are becoming ideal homelands for farmers.
China makes remarkable advancements in agricultural sector development in 2024
