Already the world’s largest producer of many farm products, China has plans to kick agriculture modernisation up a notch and become a “strong agricultural country” over the next quarter-century – invigorating rural areas as food security and a gaping rural-urban divide remain persistent challenges. The country, where most farmers still operate on a relatively small scale, aims to improve standards in farming supplies, scientific and technological equipment, and industrial resilience and competitiveness by 2050, according to a plan issued on Monday. The blueprint, jointly released by the Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council, came as Beijing has put “food security” high on its agenda amid elevated global economic uncertainties and an intensifying trade war with the United States. The plan underpins Beijing’s vision for a prosperous, modernised China in 25 years – a vision being hindered by a big income gap between cities and the rural areas where a third of its 1.4 billion people live. “Strong agriculture is the foundation for building a strong socialist modern country,” the document said. In a three-stage plan toward that goal, authorities pledged that there should be “obvious progress” by 2027, including maintaining a “reasonable self-sufficiency level” for important agricultural products and achieving breakthroughs in core technology research. And by 2035, China will have “basically achieved” agricultural modernisation, and rural residents will have “basically met modern living conditions”. Key metrics include building a number of world-class agricultural research institutions and research-oriented agricultural universities, achieving “comprehensive breakthroughs” in independent innovation in seed-breeding technologies, and cultivating agricultural products with international competitive advantages. The plan echoes President Xi Jinping’s 2022 call for a road map on how China should enhance its agricultural strength over the coming decades – a mission he called “an indispensable part” of ambitions to make China a modernised nation by 2050. How to connect small farmers with modern agriculture has remained an unsolved issue over the years Rural development professor But China still faces a slew of obstacles in achieving these goals, according to a professor specialising in rural development who declined to be named because of the matter’s sensitivity. Those hurdles include a mismatch between China’s prevailing small-scale farming operations with mechanisation and modern technology, as well as the nation’s limited arable land resources, he said. “How to connect small farmers with modern agriculture has remained an unsolved issue over the years, as authorities refrain from promoting large-scale land transfers out of fears for social instability,” he said. “Additionally, about 60 per cent of China’s rural areas are in mountainous and hilly areas, which means that the arable land has a large slope problem and is not suitable for high-level mechanisation.” The fact that those who have stayed for farming amid China’s urbanisation shift are mostly senior residents – who are often averse to adapting new technologies – has worsened the situation, he added. China’s new plan came a week after the central government announced an initiative to transform all “eligible permanent basic farmland” into high-standard farmland by 2035. Ensuring that farmland is maintained to high agricultural standards – becoming “well-facilitated” farmland – “requires sci-tech support for disaster prevention and control, soil quality and fertility improvement, and farmland management, based on information technology”, Xinhua said.