BEIJING, June 1 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative office in China have released a planning framework for agriculture cooperation in the 2016-2020 period.

The framework outlines four major fields for cooperation: jointly pushing sustainable agricultural development, reducing rural poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, as well as improving public hygiene and supporting China in regional and international agriculture cooperation.

"China's agricultural development still faces multiple challenges such as market changes and pressures from climate change. The planning framework would enable China to better cope with the difficulties," said MOA official Tang Shengyao.

After years of bumper harvests, China no longer struggles with food shortages, but structural problems remain: agricultural products are oversupplied and some are still heavily imported, while homegrown produce struggles to compete with foreign rivals.

To address the issue, Chinese policymakers have pledged to focus more on supply-side structural reform in the sector in 2017, including efforts to accelerate agricultural modernization and enhance the competitiveness of farm produce.

China's grain output decreased 0.8 percent from a year earlier to 616.24 million tonnes in 2016.