The 2025 Central Rural Work Conference reiterated: "Strengthen the tackling of key core technologies in agriculture and the efficient transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements, and develop new agricultural productivity in accordance with local conditions." New agricultural productivity is the core driving force for promoting the modernization of agriculture and rural areas to a new level, and is of great significance for laying a solid foundation for the basic realization of agricultural and rural modernization.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "new-quality productivity is an advanced form of productivity characterized by innovation as the leading factor, breaking away from traditional economic growth patterns and productivity development paths, possessing high-tech, high-efficiency, and high-quality characteristics, and conforming to the new development philosophy." It is characterized by a significant increase in total factor productivity, its key feature is innovation, its crucial element is high quality, and its essence is advanced productivity. During the 11th collective study session of the 20th CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "all localities should adhere to proceeding from reality, establishing before dismantling, adapting to local conditions, and providing classified guidance." This leads to the conclusion that new-quality productivity is an advanced productive force characterized by innovation. However, given my country's vast territory and significant differences in natural resource endowments and economic development levels across regions, regional development is extremely unbalanced. A uniform and synchronized approach is not feasible; therefore, it is essential to adapt to local conditions and provide classified guidance.
Currently, my country's agricultural development is at a critical juncture, undergoing a profound transformation from traditional factor-driven to innovation-driven growth. However, compared to industry and services, agriculture, due to its unique characteristics of the intertwining of natural and economic reproduction, faces more complex challenges in cultivating and applying new types of productive forces, which directly impacts national food security, rural revitalization, and the quality of agricultural and rural modernization. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it is necessary to establish a system for promoting new agricultural productive forces that is tailored to local conditions, regionally coordinated, and precisely targeted, thereby accelerating the pace of building a strong agricultural nation.
Strengthen talent support and build a "new farmer" training system adapted to the industrial development of various regions. First, implement a regional "new farmer" precision empowerment plan. Focusing on major grain-producing areas, facility agriculture areas, and hilly and mountainous areas, training modules will be set up in a tiered and categorized manner according to the leading industries, with intelligent agricultural machinery operation, data application, and green technology as the core training areas to comprehensively improve the quality of agricultural workers. Second, strengthen the rural talent support mechanism. Explore a long-term "challenge-based" mechanism for scientific researchers to be stationed in rural areas, using their performance in serving new agricultural productivity as the core indicator for professional title evaluation and assessment. Provide policy support in housing, children's education, and medical care for scientific and technological personnel and college graduates who are rooted in the county. Third, cultivate joint teams of "local experts + new agricultural science talents" in a categorized manner. Support leading enterprises in forming interdisciplinary technical teams in areas with a good industrial foundation; in remote areas, develop an "online expert think tank + offline local expert" model, improving the independent innovation capabilities of local agricultural technicians through remote diagnosis and regular on-site training.
To promote digital transformation and modernize agricultural labor resources, we will focus on three key areas: First, tackling key agricultural technologies. We will concentrate on critical areas such as high-quality seed sources, agricultural biotechnology breeding, and intelligent agricultural machinery, establishing a collaborative mechanism between industry, academia, and research institutions. We will leverage the innovative role of enterprises in intelligent equipment and digital applications to improve the localization level and self-controllability of core equipment. Second, we will accelerate the improvement of agricultural digital infrastructure. We will adhere to a differentiated approach, leveraging the comparative advantages of each region. Priority will be given to improving 5G, IoT, and remote sensing infrastructure in major grain-producing counties and advantageous industrial belts. In hilly and mountainous areas and remote regions, we will focus on satellite remote sensing and narrowband IoT coverage, integrating sensing devices and intelligent irrigation into high-standard farmland construction to enhance data collection and application capabilities. Third, we will continuously promote differentiated innovation in agricultural machinery and the construction of a socialized service system. We will establish regional agricultural machinery R&D tasks tailored to different terrains and operating scales, forming an equipment system adaptable to various terrain types and crop patterns. Improve the agricultural socialized service system and service models, and lower the barriers to use through models such as lease-to-own and centralized operation services to achieve large-scale application of advanced equipment in diverse scenarios.
To enhance resource efficiency and improve the sustainable adaptability of labor resources based on resource endowments, we must: First, promote systematic governance of arable land quality. We need to improve the integrated mechanism for arable land protection and the construction, management, and use of high-standard farmland, and strengthen grassroots management responsibilities. We should also promote the consolidation and mechanization of fragmented arable land to create conditions for large-scale production. Second, implement zoned governance to systematically improve arable land quality. For the black soil region of Northeast China, we must consolidate the achievements in soil and water conservation and continue to reduce the area of moderate to severe erosion. For acidification areas in the South and Northeast, we should promote soil conditioners, organic fertilizers, and straw return technologies. In the saline-alkali areas of the West and Northeast, we should develop salt-tolerant crops and ecological improvement models to improve land use capacity. Simultaneously, we should establish a national arable land quality monitoring network to form a long-term mechanism for dynamic monitoring and precise improvement. Third, strengthen the adaptability of regional technology supply. Based on the differences between North and South, East and West, and the characteristics of mountainous and hilly areas, saline-alkali land, and arid and semi-arid areas, we should organize the research and development of supporting technologies for improved varieties, cultivation methods, machinery, and farmland to improve the accuracy of technology implementation.
Innovate the institutional system and construct an organizational structure that matches the new quality of productive forces. First, with large-scale service as the main focus, build a modern agricultural management system based on division of labor and cooperation. Around key links such as planting, management, harvesting, and storage, promote full-process trusteeship and inter-link services, using large-scale service to drive technical standardization and operational collaboration, achieving effective integration of small farmers with modern agriculture. Second, enhance the overall planning capacity of rural collective economic organizations. Clarify the responsibilities of village collectives in resource integration, facility maintenance, and data management, and support their joint operations with enterprises and cooperatives, playing a pivotal role in factor integration and technology diffusion. Third, deepen the market-oriented reform of rural factors of production. Improve the land management rights transfer mechanism, steadily promote the entry of rural collective commercial construction land into the market, explore diversified revitalization paths such as compensated withdrawal, leasing, and valuation for shareholding of homestead use rights, and promote the orderly flow and efficient allocation of various factors of production.
Authors: Kong Xiangzhi (Professor, School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China), Yang Zishu (Doctoral Candidate, School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China)
