China accelerates agriculture modernization drive with widespread tech adoption
China is rapidly advancing its agricultural modernization, with smart technologies enhancing efficiency across vast fields, pastures, and fisheries in 2025.
In east China's Fujian Province, automated rail carts and heavy-lift drones have replaced manual labor in harvesting 100,000 mu (about 6,667 hectares) of citrus, significantly boosting productivity.
On the grasslands in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, herders can monitor their cattle's health and activity levels in real time through smart collars connected to their smartphones.
At a smart fishery in east China's Jiangsu Province, remote water-quality tracking and precision feeding are expected to increase shrimp yields by around 20 percent while improving quality.
From orchards to pastures and aquaculture ponds, digital innovation is reshaping Chinese agriculture.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–2025), China has intensified its smart agriculture push, achieving breakthroughs in 104 key technologies, including AI-powered, space-air-ground integrated monitoring systems, and 62 types of smart equipment such as field phenotyping robots.
The country has also launched 116 national smart agriculture demonstration projects, tailored to different regions and crop or livestock varieties. To date, more than 30 key smart agriculture technologies have been promoted nationwide, with an adoption rate exceeding 95 percent.
Moreover, smart agriculture is now being applied across the entire production chain. By advancing the "AI+" action in agriculture and rural sectors, 16 typical scenario cases have been showcased, covering breeding, farming, processing, and marketing. A new three-year plan is in place, aiming to train over 1,500 managers of large-scale farms, ranches, and fisheries to establish a new generation of smart operations.
As China's agricultural digital transformation accelerates, grain production is moving toward precision smart farming, protected agriculture is adopting digital cultivation, and the entire industry chain is undergoing rapid digital and intelligent upgrades, injecting strong momentum into the nation's agricultural modernization.
