The Significance of Driving Agricultural Development with S&T Innovation

The history of agricultural S&T development both in China and around the world shows that innovation has always been the driving force behind agricultural development and that a strong agricultural nation must inevitably possess strong S&T capabilities.

To drive the development of modern agriculture with S&T innovation is vital for ensuring national food security, promoting the high-quality development of agriculture and rural areas, and making faster strides in building a strong agricultural nation.

A fundamental solution for ensuring stable and growing grain output and firmly securing China's food supply

History tells us that stability is contingent on agriculture and that chaos reigns in the absence of food. If we cannot control our food supply through our own efforts, our national development will suffer, and may even fall under the control of others. President Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized that "The Chinese people's food supply must remain firmly in our own control at all times, and our food bowls should be primarily filled with Chinese grain."

We cannot rely on international markets to meet the food needs of more than 1.4 billion Chinese people. At the same time, however, the area of China’s arable land is very limited. As such, the fundamental solution for ensuring stable and growing grain production lies in technology.

As consumer demands shift from having enough to eat to eating well and maintaining a healthy and nutritious diet, we must leverage our limited water and land resources to ensure that agricultural production is sufficient in quantity, high in quality, environmentally sustainable, economically efficient, and optimally structured.

To achieve this, we must rely on the wings of technology to take us forward. We need to harness innovation to secure China's food supply and carry out the food crop production strategy based on farmland management and application of technology. Only in this way can we properly satisfy people's aspirations for a better life.

A core driver of green and sustainable agricultural development

President Xi Jinping places great importance on ecological conservation in rural areas. He has stressed that efforts to improve the rural environment and promote green agricultural development must be in line with China’s overall plans for ecological advancement.

At present, global issues such as climate change, water scarcity, and soil degradation are posing serious threats to agricultural sustainability. Technology is undoubtedly a key to solving the environmental and resource challenges confronting agriculture and rural areas. With precision agriculture technologies, for example, we can avoid excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by monitoring and managing farmland more accurately. We can also address the challenge of water scarcity by employing smart irrigation systems to optimize water resource allocation and improve irrigation efficiency.

Emissions reduction and carbon sequestration in agriculture and rural areas are key measures with strong potential for promoting progress toward China’s goals of reaching peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Well-conceived assessments, feasible action plans, and robust measures will be needed in order to deliver on this front.

Compared to developed countries with modernized agricultural sectors, China still faces formidable challenges in pursuing green agricultural development. This is why we need to guide the development of modern agriculture with S&T innovation.

Giving full play to the critical role of technology in green development, we need to enhance environmental protection, boost agricultural production efficiency, and promote the circular use of agricultural resources. These efforts will help propel an all-around transformation to green agricultural development.  

A powerful engine for the new undertaking of building a strong agricultural nation

Looking back at modern agricultural history, we can see that each technological revolution led to a huge jump in productivity by providing agriculture with the wings to surge ahead.

In the first revolution, high-yielding crops native to Latin America, such as corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, were introduced to the Eurasian continent. The second revolution saw fossil fuels such as petroleum being used to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides and power agricultural machinery. In the third revolution, dwarf varieties of wheat and rice were widely adopted, and the full utilization of hybrid vigor was realized.

Right now, a new agricultural revolution, defined by bio- and information technology, is on the brink of producing new breakthroughs, and all countries are vying to gain a strategic advantage. As a major agricultural nation, China cannot afford to fall behind.

Leveraging S&T innovation as the driver and guide, we must move as fast as possible to achieve core breakthroughs in key fields, make a major push to develop strategic and disruptive technologies, enhance our systematic capacity to address major risks and challenges in agriculture, and move at a faster pace toward greater S&T self-reliance and strength. In doing so, we will lay down robust foundations for building a strong agricultural country.

Editor: Zhang Xian