BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- China is adopting a range of measures to safeguard its grain security, with an overarching document on agriculture reaffirming the nation's unwavering commitment to fortifying its granary.
The "No. 1 central document," which was released on Sunday, states that the country will safeguard its grain security, positioning reform, opening-up, and scientific and technological innovation as the driving forces.
China is well-positioned to reap another bumper harvest this year, following a record-high crop yield in 2024, Wang Jinchen, an official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said on the latest episode of the China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk show hosted by Xinhua News Agency.
China's grain output hit a record 706.5 million tonnes last year, a 1.6 percent increase from 2023 and a "hard-won success" in grain security.
With favorable conditions, including abundant sunlight and high temperatures, the country is on the track for a strong wheat harvest this year, according to Ru Zhengang, a professor at the Henan Institute of Science and Technology.
Grain security has long been a central priority for the Chinese government. With under 10 percent of the planet's arable land, China feeds one-fifth of the world's population.
To reach its goal of achieving self-sufficiency in food, the country will work to increase per-unit yields of grain and oil crops on a large scale, strengthen its protection and improve the quality of arable land, and enhance its capacity to prevent and mitigate agricultural disasters, among other tasks, according to the document.
Notably, the document highlights the role of technology in promoting food security, calling for the development of new quality productive forces in agriculture in light of local conditions, as well as the cultivation of a group of leading high-tech agricultural enterprises.
Experts at the roundtable hailed China's progress in developing high-standard farmland, which is characterized by high yields, strong disaster resistance and efficient resource utilization, and said they considered this progress to be key to boosting agricultural productivity.
By the end of 2024, China had developed over 1 billion mu (about 66.7 million hectares) of high-standard farmland and built irrigation networks stretching a total length of over 10 million kilometers. These infrastructure developments are critical to sustaining China's successive bumper harvests, said Jin Wencheng, director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs' Research Center for the Rural Economy. ■
