China will continue to promote food production through better farmland management and technological innovation while accelerating efforts over the next five years to build a beautiful and harmonious countryside where people can live and work, according to Tu Shengwei, a researcher at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
Tu's remarks followed the State Council, China's cabinet, issuing a plan to accelerate agricultural and rural modernization during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030).
The plan seeks to accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas to drive Chinese modernization, and has identified key tasks and policy measures for this purpose during the period.
According to the plan, China will increase its comprehensive grain production capacity to about 725 million tons by 2030.
Regarding the implementation of the plan, Tu emphasized ensuring the bottom line of food security is a prerequisite for advancing agricultural and rural modernization.
"First, it is necessary to implement the requirement of increasing food production through better farmland management. This means advancing the construction of high-standard farmland. Integration of construction, verification, and management is required to ensure that high-standard farmland is well built, managed, and utilized. It is necessary to continuously improve the level of self-reliance and self-improvement in agricultural science and technology, and enhance innovation and application in agricultural technology. In areas such as the seed industry, agricultural machinery, and disaster prevention and mitigation, we need to scale up the application of technology, letting it drive improvements in both per-unit yield and grain quality," said Tu.
Beyond food security, the plan also proposes accelerated efforts to build a beautiful and harmonious countryside for people to live and work in, calling for new breakthroughs in the integrated development of urban and rural areas and remarkable achievements in the high-quality development of agriculture and rural areas.
"Previous plans focused more on making rural areas more livable by improving infrastructure, public services, and the living environment. The new plan proposes building a beautiful and harmonious countryside where people can live and work, broadening the traditional understanding of a harmonious countryside to include being suitable for working. In other words, rural areas need not only a pleasant environment, solid infrastructure, and good public services, but also industries," said Tu.
China to boost grain output, build beautiful, harmonious countryside by 2030: researcher
