On September 29, the State Council Information Office held a press conference in its series on "Starting the 15th Five-Year Plan," briefing on accelerating agricultural and rural modernization and solidly advancing comprehensive rural revitalization. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Zhang Zhu stated that agricultural and rural development has maintained a steady and improving momentum, providing strong support for the national economy's continued overall stability and its trend toward new and better development.
Improving mechanisms for high-standard farmland construction, operation, and maintenance
This year, China's grain production has continued its good momentum of stable and increasing output. Summer grain output exceeded 300 billion jin for the first time, and early rice output has remained above 56 billion jin for six consecutive years. Autumn grain is the largest component of annual grain production, accounting for about three-quarters of total output. This year, the autumn grain area is expected to increase steadily, with a notable rise in high-yield crops such as corn. At present, more than 20% of the autumn grain harvest area has been reaped, and a full-year grain harvest is in sight. Zhang Zhu said, "We will make every effort to secure a bumper grain harvest."
Regarding the current and "15th Five-Year Plan" period grain supply-demand situation, Zhang Zhu believes that China's food security is fully guaranteed, but the grain supply-demand balance remains tight, and the grain supply structure still needs optimization. The "15th Five-Year Plan for Accelerating Agricultural and Rural Modernization" has set comprehensive grain production capacity as a binding indicator, explicitly proposing that by 2030, comprehensive grain production capacity should reach about 1.45 trillion jin. Zhang Zhu stated that a new round of the action to boost grain production capacity by 100 billion jin will be intensified, adhering to both stabilizing area and increasing per-unit yield. It is necessary to firmly implement the Party and government responsibility system for food security, strictly observe the arable land red line, and ensure the grain area remains stable at about 1.75 billion mu; greater efforts will be made to promote the integrated and synergistic effects of good farmland, good seeds, good machinery, and good methods, and to raise per-unit yields in a large-scale and balanced manner.
On how to gradually optimize the grain supply structure, Zhang Zhu explained that in terms of regional structure, it is necessary to adapt to changes in resource endowments and supply-demand situations, rationally optimize the regional layout of grain production, better leverage the functions of advantageous areas, study and carry out a new round of agricultural resource zoning, and promote better alignment between agricultural production and water and soil resources. In terms of variety structure, stabilize staple grains, increase production of corn, soybeans, and other crops, and expand edible oil supply through multiple channels. In terms of quality structure, guide farmers to grow good grain and improve the premium rate.
Arable land is the lifeblood of grain production. In recent years, despite frequent extreme weather, the proportion of China's crop affected area to sown area has dropped from 27.7% during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period to about 7% during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, achieving reduced output losses in severe disasters, stable output in mild disasters, and increased output without disasters. "Without these 1 billion mu of high-standard farmland, it would be difficult to reach the new level of 1.4 trillion jin in grain output," said Chen Bangxun, Director of the Development Planning Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, mechanisms for construction, operation, and maintenance will be accelerated and improved, ensuring the quality of high-standard farmland is given top priority, and promoting the implementation of construction tasks.
To ensure that 1.4 billion people eat enough, eat well, and eat nutritiously and healthily, during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period efforts will also focus on building a diversified food supply system, seeking food from facility agriculture, from rivers, lakes, and seas, from forests and grasslands, and from biological agriculture.
Regularized assistance with "entry and exit" dynamic management
"After five years of unremitting efforts during the transition period, the endogenous development momentum of poverty-stricken areas and impoverished people has continued to strengthen, effectively consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation," Zhang Zhu introduced. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, a new stage of regularized assistance will begin. The Party Central Committee and the State Council have issued documents on establishing a regularized mechanism to prevent returning to poverty and falling into poverty, relevant departments have issued 23 supporting policy documents, and localities have refined and improved measures in light of actual conditions. The "1+23+N" policy system for regularized assistance has basically taken shape.
This year, the central government arranged 177 billion yuan in regularized assistance funds, focusing on supporting industrial assistance, employment assistance, and development-oriented assistance for less-developed areas. Regularized assistance will be incorporated into the rural revitalization strategy for coordinated implementation. Monitoring areas and targets have achieved full coverage across all provinces and all rural populations. Assistance methods focus on combining online and offline approaches, optimizing farmers' independent applications, departmental big data early warnings, and daily inspections by grassroots officials, so as to detect early, intervene early, and assist early, ensuring that all eligible persons are included and all those in need are helped. Management implements "entry and exit" dynamic management, directing limited assistance resources to those most in need. At present, 160 national key counties for rural revitalization assistance and 390 provincial-level key counties for rural revitalization assistance have been identified in the central and western regions. Statistical monitoring, regular evaluation, and dynamic adjustment mechanisms will be further improved, with preferential support in finance, banking, land, and talent.
Industrial revitalization is the top priority and foundation of rural revitalization. Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Maierdan Mugaiti stated that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will guide localities to rely on distinctive resources, expand the multiple functions of agriculture, tap the diverse value of rural areas, and accelerate the building of a modern rural industrial system. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, rural industries improved in quality and efficiency, and new industries and new forms of business such as rural e-commerce and rural leisure tourism flourished. In 2025, there were more than 100,000 large-scale agricultural product processing enterprises nationwide, with operating revenue of nearly 18 trillion yuan; leisure agriculture operating revenue reached 950 billion yuan, and online retail sales of agricultural products reached 783.3 billion yuan. "We will continuously broaden the channels and ways for farmers to participate in rural industrial development, improve the mechanism linking farmers and enterprises, keep more jobs in rural areas, and leave more value-added benefits of the industrial chain to farmers," said Maierdan Mugaiti.
The main line of rural reform remains properly handling the relationship between farmers and land
In recent years, rural reform has continued to deepen, and achievements such as the "separation of three rights" in rural contracted land and reform of the rural collective property rights system have benefited the broad masses of farmers. Chen Bangxun introduced that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the main line of rural reform will still be properly handling the relationship between farmers and land. Regarding contracted land, during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the second round of land contracting for the vast majority of rural households will expire, and pilot work on extending the second round of land contracting for another 30 years after expiration must be solidly advanced. At present, this work is being piloted across entire provinces in 29 provinces, and more than 30 million rural households have smoothly signed extension contracts. Regarding homestead land, efforts will continue to focus on "ensuring housing, controlling unauthorized construction, and revitalizing idle assets," promote the guarantee of reasonable land use for rural villagers' housing construction, guide localities in strengthening homestead approval management, strictly investigate and prevent illegal and disciplinary acts, and strictly observe the bottom line and red line of laws and policies; guide localities, on the basis of fully respecting farmers' wishes, to revitalize and utilize idle rural houses in accordance with laws and regulations through leasing, shareholding, cooperation, and other methods, so that farmers can gain an additional source of property income. Regarding reform of the collective property rights system, the focus is on confirming rights, granting rights, and activating rights. There are about 930 million members of rural collective economic organizations nationwide and 6.58 billion mu of collective land resources. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, localities will be guided to accelerate the establishment of operating mechanisms for rural collective economic organizations with clear property rights and reasonable distribution, promote the standardized construction of rural property rights trading markets, revitalize collective assets and resources, and steadily develop a new type of rural collective economy in accordance with local conditions. In terms of building the operating system, efforts will be coordinated to develop appropriately scaled operating entities and support ordinary farmers. China still has about 200 million small farmers. At the same time, new agricultural operating entities continue to grow, with about 6 million family farms and farmer cooperatives, and about 1.08 million commercial social service entities, serving about 89 million small farmers. "During the '15th Five-Year Plan' period, we will continue to adhere to 'large where appropriate, small where appropriate,' cultivate and strengthen new agricultural operating entities, improve the convenient and efficient agricultural social service system, establish and improve a modern agricultural operating system that supports industrial development and drives farmers' income growth, and promote the organic connection between small farmers and modern agricultural development," said Chen Bangxun.