An aerial drone photo shows harvesters working at a soybean field of a farming company under Beidahuang Group in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Sept. 30, 2025. (Photo by Lin Jinchun/Xinhua)

BEIJING, June 2 (Xinhua) -- The State Council, China's cabinet, has issued a plan to accelerate agricultural and rural modernization during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) period.

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, by 2030, the nation's food security will be continuously enhanced; the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of agriculture will be further improved; and the achievements of poverty alleviation will be consolidated and expanded.

The plan laid out two binding targets, including increasing the country's comprehensive grain production capacity to about 725 million tonnes by 2030. It will also aim to raise the overall pass rate of routine agricultural product quality and safety inspections to no less than 98 percent by the same year.

The plan has also proposed 13 other anticipatory targets aimed at improvements in areas including meat production, technology contribution to agriculture, green development in agriculture, sewage treatment in rural areas, and farmers' income, among others, through 2030.

"On the basis of ensuring stable and secure supplies of grain and other important agricultural products, greater emphasis will be placed on improving quality and efficiency in the agriculture sector," an official with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said, adding that the plan aims to better meet people's special and higher demand through the increased supply of nutritious and healthy agricultural products.

Guided by the plan, the country aims to greatly enhance its self-reliance and strength in agricultural science and technology, make major strides in transforming agriculture into a modern major industry, and continue to increase farmers' income at a relatively fast pace through 2030.

It 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.

The plan calls for efforts to achieve major breakthroughs in developing new quality productive forces in agriculture, foster and strengthen specialty industries in rural regions, accelerate the comprehensive green transition of agricultural development and promote green agricultural production methods, and improve infrastructure conditions and public services in rural areas, among others.

It also outlines work arrangements for advancing major projects covering high‑standard farmlands, agricultural science and technology innovation capacity, and cold-chain logistics facilities for food storage and preservation, stressing efforts to promote AI adoption in agriculture and upgrade the agricultural product processing industry.

Faster adoption of agricultural technology has continued to lift agricultural productivity in China in recent years. In 2025, China's grain production reached about 714.9 million tonnes, marking the second straight year grain output had stayed above 700 million tonnes. Last year, the contribution rate of agricultural scientific and technological progress exceeded 64 percent, while the comprehensive mechanization rate of crop cultivation and harvesting reached 76.7 percent.

With regard to greater sci-tech contribution to agriculture, the new plan has set an anticipatory target of raising the contribution rate of sci-tech progress in boosting agricultural development to 67 percent by 2030.

According to the plan, the country will seek to scale up more pioneering industries, such as intelligent design breeding, new‑energy agricultural machinery, low‑altitude agricultural economy, agricultural bio‑manufacturing, and new foods over the coming years.