China Issues Digital Rural High-Quality Development Action Plan for 2026-2030

The Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have jointly issued the Digital Rural High-Quality Development Action Plan (2026-2030). The plan calls for strengthening agricultural science and technology innovation, enhancing the development of smart agriculture innovation platforms, and building an integrated innovation system covering basic research, applied research, and research and development manufacturing.

It calls for advancing iterative innovation in smart agriculture technology models and achieving breakthroughs in key core technologies, including agricultural sensors and dedicated chips, core algorithms, robots, and intelligent design breeding tools. The plan also calls for implementing an action for the high-quality development of agricultural machinery and equipment, developing and promoting intelligent agricultural machinery with high-precision operation capabilities, improving the quality inspection and testing system for smart agriculture technology and equipment, and promoting coordinated research on digital and intelligent technologies with agricultural machinery and agronomic techniques. It calls for carrying out unmanned agricultural machinery operation trials, raising the level of intelligent agricultural production, and guiding eligible regions to explore the establishment of digital rural technology innovation centers.

The action plan calls for accelerating the development of smart agriculture, speeding up the organic integration of high-quality farmland, improved varieties, advanced machinery, and agronomic methods with digitalization, focusing on key regions and key crop varieties, and promoting a set of digital and intelligent solutions for raising the per-unit yield of major crops over large areas. It calls for promoting the research, development, and application of intelligent breeding technologies and building a number of intelligent and modernized advantageous crop seed production zones and core breeding farms for livestock, poultry, and aquatic products. It calls for studying and improving the standards system for agricultural artificial intelligence, promoting application scenarios that integrate artificial intelligence with agriculture, leveraging the role of comprehensive modern agricultural service centers, and raising the level of digitalization and intelligence in agricultural socialized services.