As the world's most populous nation, agricultural development has ensured China's food security for decades. CGTN takes you to the country's northeastern Heilongjiang province, known as China's granary.

It is the great northern wilderness, known as Beidahuang in Chinese.

It refers to the extreme northeastern parts of China – the fertile plain surrounded by three rivers – Heilongjiang, Sunghua and Ussuri Rivers. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, hundreds of thousands of young people had been sent here in the nation's pursuit of agricultural modernity and national food security.

The “Great Northern Wilderness" once held China’s largest concentration of freshwater wetlands, and has become home to China's largest cluster of state farms, which can now feed nearly 10 percent of the Chinese population. From frontier "wasteland" to a state granary, then to a popular brand of organic foods, and finally to a national model for agricultural development, Beidahuang's “wilderness” illustrates the trajectory of China's quest for food security.

And with the unprecedented scale of urbanization, many of China's traditional grain producing bases have encountered a rural labor shortage, as many younger laborers have left for city jobs. Agricultural conglomerates are eyeing smart farming to tackle the rural labor shortage, while realizing agricultural modernization.