Key document highlights China's efforts to further deepen rural reform

China unveiled a comprehensive policy blueprint for rural development on Sunday, charting a detailed road-map to build up the country's agricultural strength and emphasizing grain security, agricultural innovation and deepened reforms.

The "No. 1 central document" for 2025 – the first policy statement released by China's central authorities this year – called for enhanced efforts in the work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers in 2025 and beyond, with a target of advancing all-around rural revitalization and further consolidating the country's agricultural foundation.

Words such as "rural area," "agriculture," "development," "farmers," and "arable land" were frequently emphasized, highlighting the country's focus on sustainable and high-quality growth.

Outlining priorities to undertake solid steps towards advancing all-around rural revitalization, this year's document has a clear focus on deepening rural reform throughout the text.

The document has called for using reform to resolve the problems and challenges facing high-quality development of agriculture and rural areas to achieve all-round rural revitalization, Jin Wencheng, director of the Research Center for the Rural Economy at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, told China Media Group (CMG).

The document proposed to make arrangements for deepening the reform of the rural land system and the reform of the management system, to further stimulate the vitality of agricultural and rural development.

It also called for improving the system and mechanism for the promotion of the urbanization of people from rural areas.

"Allowing them to fully integrate into the city, but at the same time leaving them with a way out," Jin said.

Therefore, in rural areas, it is imperative for them to retain their land contract rights, rights to use rural land as a residential lot and rights to share in the proceeds from rural collective operations, Jin said. "This is an important institutional arrangement in the process of the country's new urbanization drive."

Experts have noted that the reform measures in the document have several new breakthroughs.

In terms of non-grain management of cultivated land, the document proposed to set up a transition period based on industrial development and crop growth cycles. Regarding the ban on straw burning, it has required to establish a ban on burning range and make stipulations on the range and time of the ban on burning.

Jin said these reform measures have shown that the country respects farmers' wishes and its people-centered philosophy.

The document also emphasized the importance of developing new quality productive forces in agriculture in light of local conditions. It called for the cultivation of leading high-tech agricultural enterprises, and the acceleration of breakthroughs in crop varieties.

Experts said it is essential to fully apply the results of a new round of scientific and technological revolution represented by artificial intelligence, digital technology and modern biotechnology to comprehensively improve productivity.

Emphasizing the application of modern cutting-edge technology, Lin Wanlong, vice president of China Agricultural University, urged the need to cultivate strategic scientists and young talents to push for the country's agricultural productivity for leapfrog development.

"Meanwhile, efforts must be made to build an innovative agricultural system and create an independent innovation platform to promote the development of new quality productive forces," he told CMG.

It is necessary to build a system and mechanism for collaborative research, and coordinate various forces in the entire agricultural innovation system, Jin concluded.