China has vowed to realize agriculture modernization by 2035 and make “decisive progress” in improving agricultural quality, a latest government guideline showed.

According to the guideline issued by seven government bodies, including the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China will enter a period of important strategic opportunity in the next five years as the focus on agriculture turns to higher quality development.

The guideline promoted three main methods as a way to achieve this goal: industrial cooperation, efficiency elevation, and international competitiveness.

Respectively, the scale of livestock and poultry farming must reach 66% and the proportion of demonstration areas for aquaculture should take up at least 65%. Agricultural productivity must get 55,000 yuan per capita and the integrated mechanization rate of crop cultivation and harvest should reach 71%, with the fertilizer and pesticide efficiency at above 41%.

In terms of the quality of farmers, the guideline aims to train more farmers with professional skills by 2022. Specifically, it stressed that it is necessary to cultivate more than 5 million professional farmers with systematic knowledge and advanced skills, and the proportion of professional farmers with a high school education or above should be above 35%.

The guideline also aims to improve grain dealers and agriculture-related enterprises’ international competitiveness, calling on more of them to go overseas and uplift the export volume of agricultural products to an average annual rate of 3%.