The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) has released a plan for promoting key subjects during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) to enhance the country’s agricultural sci-tech innovation.
The subjects involve food security, nutrition and health, cultivated-land conservation, disease prevention and control, green development, intelligent agricultural machinery, basic research, frontier and interdisciplinary research, data resources and regional development.
By 2020, the rate of agricultural technological development’s contribution to China’s economic growth rate had reached over 60%, and the coverage rate of improved varieties of crops has reached over 96%. The proportion of improved varieties and localised livestock, poultry and aquatic products are on the rise year by year.
Science and technology have become one of the most important drivers of China’s agricultural economic growth. In the future, the CAAS will focus on developing basic scientific research issues, including biological nitrogen fixation, apomictic reproduction, pathogenesis and transmission mechanisms of animal diseases, and cutting-edge technologies, such as gene editing, synthetic biology, pest monitoring and early warning. CAAS will also focus on developing high-yield and high-quality grain crops to ensure national food security.
According to a page, CAAS is a national, integrative agricultural scientific research organisation with responsibility for carrying out both basic and applied research, as well as research into new technologies impacting agriculture.
CAAS is dedicated to overcoming a broad range of challenges impacting agricultural development and support of the local rural economy. Importantly, CAAS promotes sustainable agriculture within and outside China, extending its reach through technology exchange and cooperative research agreements with agricultural research institutions/universities domestically and internationally.
In the area of applying new agricultural technologies in China, CAAS has a solid focus on innovation. This includes the integration and full application of those ideas to make a real difference in guaranteeing national food security and ecological security.
Through intensive research and development, breakthroughs have been made in a number of key areas, for instance in the improvement of agricultural products, more efficient use of resources, and the application of agricultural biotechnology for the prevention and control of major animal and plant diseases, as well as the prevention and control of agricultural pollution, and enhancement of soil fertility.
For example, researchers investigated the key factors and technological requirements for the most efficient production of maize. Thirteen different systematic approaches were developed, each suited to different ecological regions or niches in China, such as the southwest, the north, or the Huang-huai-hai Plain. These models have proven highly successful at boosting maize production, consistently generating record-high yields in many different ecological regions.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, digital technology is bound to play a bigger role in the country’s steps toward rural vitalisation and agricultural modernisation. The digitalisation of rural industries is key to developing the countryside, and it is a new driver of a sustainable rural economy.
Integrating new technology like big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) with crop and livestock production will be central to developing smart agriculture. The involvement of digital technologies across the supply chain will help increase efficiency while reducing costs.
The push toward digital agriculture is the result of a plan released in January last year aimed at improving smart agriculture and providing support for rural vitalisation in the years leading up to 2025. Jointly released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Cyberspace Administration of China, the plan proposed building a basic data system for rural areas to facilitate targeted management and services. The plan highlighted research into and the use of intelligent agricultural machinery as well as the development of smart agriculture based on the internet of things, sensors, location systems, and robots.