Departments (Bureaus, Commissions) of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Agriculture and Pastoral Affairs), Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, and Fisheries of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the central government, and cities under separate planning; the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps; Beidahuang Reclamation Group Co., Ltd.; the Guangdong Provincial Administration of Agricultural Reclamation; all departments and bureaus of the Ministry’s organs, its dispatched agencies, and all directly affiliated units; and relevant organizations:

　　To vigorously promote the development of smart agriculture and further implement the "Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Vigorously Developing Smart Agriculture," our ministry has organized the formulation of the "National Smart Agriculture Action Plan (2024–2028)." We are now issuing this plan to you; please ensure its careful implementation and organization.

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs

October 23, 2024

National Smart Agriculture Action Plan (2024–2028)  

　　To implement the Party Central Committee and the State Council’s decisions and plans on developing smart agriculture, further promote the implementation of the “Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Vigorously Developing Smart Agriculture,” and accelerate the promotion and application of smart agricultural technologies and equipment, this Action Plan has been formulated.

　　I. General Requirements  

　　The underlying approach focuses on key areas and critical links in the development of smart agriculture, targeting the most challenging issues facing agricultural and rural production management. We will organize and implement three major initiatives for smart agriculture, leveraging policy incentives, leading examples, technological innovation, and service-driven approaches to achieve tangible and measurable results. This will accelerate the comprehensive development of smart agriculture and provide strong support for the modernization of China’s agricultural sector.

　 　Work layout. In terms of public service capacity building, we will accelerate the development of public-service products such as the National Big Data Platform for Agriculture and Rural Areas, the “Single-Map” system for agricultural and rural land use, and foundational model algorithms. In terms of industrial layout, we will focus on boosting yields across large areas of major crops, cultivate a group of smart farms, smart ranches, and smart fisheries, and promote digital transformation across the entire agricultural value chain. As for demonstration and leading roles, we will support Zhejiang Province in taking the lead in piloting and exploring the promotion of future application scenarios such as the “Fuxi Farm.”

　 　Action objective. Following the work plan of “laying a solid foundation in one year, achieving noticeable results in three years, and reaching a new level in five years,” we will advance the initiative in stages. In 2024, we will fully launch three major initiatives—enhancing public service capabilities for smart agriculture, expanding applications in key areas of smart agriculture, and driving demonstration effects through smart agriculture—and implement eight key tasks. By the end of 2026, preliminary public service capabilities for smart agriculture will be established, and a number of intelligent solutions for significantly boosting yields of major crops over large areas, as well as technological models for smart agricultural (pastoral and fishery) farms, will be explored. The informatization rate of agricultural production will reach over 30%. By the end of 2028, public service capabilities for smart agriculture will be substantially enhanced, and the role of information technology in reducing costs, increasing yields, and improving efficiency of grain and oil crops and other important agricultural products will be fully demonstrated. Digital transformation of the entire agricultural value chain in pilot regions will be largely completed, and the mechanisms and pathways for promoting smart agriculture across all regions will be basically matured, with the informatization rate of agricultural production reaching over 32%.

　　II. Key Tasks

　　(1) Implement an initiative to enhance public service capabilities in smart agriculture.  

　 　1. Build a national big data platform for agriculture and rural areas. Improve the architectural design of the national big data platform for agriculture and rural areas, comprehensively plan existing resources and new projects, accelerate the enhancement of computing power, storage, security, and network infrastructure, and advance the construction of disaster recovery systems. Establish a unified data resource pool and develop integrated systems for data collection, aggregation, governance, analysis, and decision-making, thereby creating a central hub for agricultural and rural data management services. Formulate and refine classification and grading standards for agricultural and rural data, as well as data resource catalogs and sharing mechanisms. Implement the “All-Agricultural Code” to assign unique codes to agricultural resources, entities, and product data, and further promote the aggregation, governance, and sharing of data resources. Upgrade and optimize the mobile app interface of “Farm-to-Table,” enriching and expanding digital applications that serve farmers. Build a collaborative innovation system for agricultural and rural big data, develop standard specifications to facilitate coordination between different levels of the data platform, and promote the use of software tools such as the foundational platform for agricultural and rural big data. By 2025, the relevant data management systems and standard specifications will be largely established. By the end of 2028, a fully functional, vertically and horizontally coordinated, and practically effective national big data platform for agriculture and rural areas will be essentially completed.

　　2. Jointly build a “single map” for agricultural and rural land use. Make coordinated and effective use of existing resources such as the public service platform for agricultural and rural geographic information, and develop digital base maps tailored to the needs of agricultural and rural management applications. Enhance functionalities related to map creation, publication, and service delivery, thereby providing foundational support for agricultural and rural departments at all levels. Through central-local cooperation and inter-departmental collaboration, promote the integration of various agriculture-related data into the mapping system, and build thematic layers covering cultivated land, permanent basic farmland, high-standard farmland, contracted land, residential land, land use for crop cultivation, and land used for aquaculture ponds. Establish digital records for each plot of land. Encourage agricultural and rural departments at all levels and various stakeholders to leverage the “single-map” approach to develop diverse applications, including control over cultivated land use, disaster prevention and mitigation, production management services, and precision operations with agricultural machinery.

　 　3. Develop a foundational model for smart agriculture. Build an open platform for agricultural foundational models and algorithms, and establish an open-source community for intelligent agricultural model algorithms, providing efficient and agile development tools and a foundational model library for the development of various agricultural models. Develop and promote foundational model algorithms with independent intellectual property rights—including those for crop growth, animal behavior and trait recognition, production management decision-making, and multi-factor coordinated control of facility environments—as well as general-purpose software tools or SaaS services covering smart breeding, feed formulation, farm management, and other areas, thereby laying a technological foundation for diverse smart agriculture applications. Accelerate the deployment of large-scale AI models in key areas such as agricultural and rural scientific research, production operations, and management services. By the end of 2026, the open platform for agricultural foundational models and algorithms, along with its foundational model library, will be essentially completed. By the end of 2028, more than 20 foundational model algorithms and general-purpose software tools or SaaS services will have been developed and promoted.

　　(2) Implement an action to expand applications in key areas of smart agriculture.

　　4. Empower large-scale yield increases in major crops. Organize the National Smart Agriculture Innovation Center, leading research institutions, and technology-leading enterprises to focus on key regions and priority crop varieties nationwide, and integrate and promote a batch of digital farming technology solutions that significantly boost yields across large-scale agricultural areas. Encourage localities to advance the construction of smart digital farms tailored to their specific conditions, including integrated water-fertilizer management systems and digital monitoring equipment, and to explore and refine construction standards while optimizing the four-level farmland quality monitoring network—covering national, provincial, municipal, and county levels. Accelerate the digital transformation of agricultural machinery and equipment, guiding the adoption of terminal devices equipped with BeiDou-assisted driving systems to enhance precision in agricultural operations. Encourage regions with suitable conditions to comprehensively roll out monitoring and early-warning networks for field weather, crop growth status, soil moisture levels, and pest and disease outbreaks, thereby establishing an integrated monitoring system covering the entire agricultural territory. Support agricultural social service providers with the necessary resources to expand their smart agriculture services, offering smallholder farmers and other agricultural operators comprehensive information services throughout the entire production cycle—including agricultural guidance, market intelligence, and disaster prevention and mitigation measures. By the end of 2028, strive to have basically matured digital farming technology solutions for major grain and oil crops.

　 　5. Cultivate a group of smart agricultural (pastoral, fishery) farms. Guide localities to integrate and apply appropriate information technology equipment based on the actual needs of their specific crop and livestock varieties as well as production conditions, and to build diversified smart farms (pastures and fisheries) tailored to local circumstances. In smart farms, priority should be given to technologies and equipment such as environmental monitoring and regulation, precise management of water, fertilizers, and pesticides, intelligent plant protection, unmanned inspection and transportation, and smart agricultural machinery. In smart pastures, emphasis should be placed on technologies and equipment including individual physiological parameter monitoring and management, precise environmental regulation, automated inspection and disinfection, intelligent disease diagnosis, precision feed formulation, automatic collection and waste removal, and harmless treatment of waste. In smart fisheries, key technologies and equipment include environmental and water quality monitoring, automatic oxygenation, intelligent inspection, smart feeding, individual behavior observation, intelligent fish disease diagnosis, and graded counting. Implement a Smart Empowerment Program for Farms (Pastures and Fisheries), bringing together resources and strengths from agricultural and rural departments at all levels, market entities, and other stakeholders to provide eligible farmer cooperatives, family farms, agricultural enterprises, and other interested parties with general-purpose software tools for smart agriculture, information technology training, online agricultural technical services, and market intelligence.

　　6. Promote the digital transformation of the entire agricultural value chain. Encourage localities to establish a number of benchmark models for the digital transformation of industrial chains, fully leveraging the roles of industry associations, “chain leader” enterprises, and leading enterprises to drive the digital transformation of agricultural production and business entities and enhance collaborative efficiency across the entire industrial chain. Deeply implement the “Internet Plus” initiative for bringing agricultural products from villages into cities, promote the intelligent upgrading of national-level agricultural product origin markets, strengthen the information-based construction of storage, preservation, and cold-chain logistics at agricultural product origins, and build smart supply chains that are market-oriented, data-driven, and highly collaborative, thereby facilitating smooth connections between production and sales and ensuring premium prices for high-quality products. Establish a number of big-data analysis and application centers for the entire industrial chain of key agricultural products, enhance information monitoring across the entire industrial chain of these key products, and guide the orderly development of related industries. Promote smart supervision of agricultural product quality and safety, build a national integrated supervision platform, provide guidance to qualified producers to set up information-based quality and safety management systems, popularize the use of electronic certificates of compliance, and encourage regions with suitable conditions to launch pilot programs for traceability and brand protection.

　 　(3) Implement a demonstration and driving initiative for smart agriculture.

　　7. Promote pilot programs for smart agriculture. Support Zhejiang in building a leading zone for smart agriculture by comprehensively leveraging policy measures such as technological innovation, talent recruitment, fiscal and tax support, and financial services. Explore the establishment of a special fund for smart agriculture and promote the development of a coordinated mechanism involving both the central government and provincial authorities to advance smart agriculture initiatives. Prioritize the implementation and application of public-service products for smart agriculture in Zhejiang, facilitate the seamless integration of the “ZheNong Code” and the “QuanNong Code,” and take the lead in achieving data interconnection and business collaboration between the central and provincial levels. Continuously drive the iterative upgrades of Zhejiang’s “Rural Brain,” build “agricultural industry brains” for crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and fisheries, develop and promote the “ZheNong” series of applications, and establish a number of smart agricultural (livestock and fishery) farms adopting various technological models. By the end of 2028, Zhejiang’s agricultural industry brain will be essentially completed, with more than 1,000 digital agriculture factories and 100 future farms cultivated. A set of standards and specifications will be established, and a batch of mature and applicable smart agriculture software and hardware products will be developed and promoted.

　 　8. Explore the future directions of smart agriculture. We support research institutions and universities in continuously advancing iterative innovation in smart agriculture technology models, strengthening R&D on cutting-edge smart agriculture technologies and system integration, and leading the future direction of smart agriculture development. We also encourage the Chinese Academy of Sciences to keep exploring and summarizing the “Fuxi Farm” model. We will continue optimizing models for soil nutrient inversion, crop simulation and prediction, and precise meteorological analysis, and promote grid-based and digital management of cultivated land. This will facilitate digital simulation and scenario-based analysis of agricultural production processes, enabling the formulation of optimal planting strategies. We will further advance innovation in intelligent agricultural machinery, achieving precision land preparation, precision seeding, variable-rate application of pesticides, variable-rate fertilization, variable-rate irrigation, reduction of harvest losses, reduction of transportation losses, reduction of storage losses, and rational utilization of straw—all within large-scale application scenarios. We will foster a group of leading technology enterprises in the field of smart agriculture, pool innovative resources, and accelerate the R&D, commercialization, and industrial application of smart agriculture technologies.

　　 III. Organizational Support

　　(1) Strengthen organizational leadership. Establish a mechanism to promote smart agriculture development, set up a dedicated task force, clearly define responsibilities and division of labor, and develop an annual task list to ensure the steady and orderly implementation of all tasks. Provincial-level agricultural and rural departments should formulate specific measures, clarify principal responsibilities, strengthen policy support and workforce guarantees, and ensure that task objectives are achieved on schedule. Enhance monitoring and dispatching of action plans, track and analyze the implementation status of key tasks and projects, and promptly identify and resolve any issues arising during implementation. Improve the Expert Advisory Committee for Smart Agriculture, conduct research on trends and major challenges in smart agriculture development, and put forward policy recommendations.

　 　(2) Increase policy support. Make good use of existing projects and policies such as high-standard farmland development, smart agriculture initiatives, facility agriculture development, integrated development of agricultural industries, and subsidies for the purchase and application of agricultural machinery, to create synergistic policy support for the development of smart agriculture. Coordinate and leverage funding channels—including central budget investments, upgrades and renovations of major information platforms, and major science and technology projects—to bolster the capacity-building efforts for smart agriculture and accelerate research and innovation in key technologies. Strengthen publicity and training on public-service applications of smart agriculture. Encourage localities to explore new policies such as special subsidies for smart agriculture, and further refine a diversified policy support system encompassing technology, services, and finance.

　　(3) Strengthen summarization and exchange. Timely summarize work progress and achievements, promote exemplary experiences and models, and compile and distribute a collection of outstanding cases in smart agriculture. Establish a catalog of key technologies for smart agriculture and a system for information dissemination; select and release new smart agricultural technologies and equipment to facilitate effective alignment between technology supply and demand. Hold on-site promotion meetings for smart agriculture development to encourage mutual learning and exchange among regions, driving comprehensive improvements from specific pilot sites to broader areas. Make good use of online and offline platforms such as the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, new media channels, and the China International Agricultural Products Fair to fully showcase the achievements of the Smart Agriculture Action Plan. Strengthen international exchanges and cooperation in the fields of technology, talent, standards, and experience in smart agriculture.