In January 2025, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council released the Rural Comprehensive Revitalization Plan (2024-2027) (the “Rural Revitalization Plan” or the “plan”), spurring efforts to grow the agriculture industry and improve conditions for residents in rural areas.
This plan seeks to make major improvements to rural issues by 2027, when the next 21st Party Congress is due to take place. Its goals include enhancing agricultural output and capacity to secure food security while simultaneously boosting the prosperity and well-being of rural communities by closing urban-rural gaps in income, infrastructure development, and access to public and community services.
In many ways, this plan serves as an extension of previous poverty alleviation efforts, emphasizing the need to ensure that vulnerable communities do not slip back into poverty.
“Rural revitalization” has become a core government policy to boost overall economic development by focusing on growth in rural areas—where 477 million people still reside as of 2023. The plan also underscores the importance of adopting sustainable agricultural practices and implementing measures to protect and restore the rural environment, ensuring that rural development adheres to the country’s carbon emissions and green transition ambitions.
Promoting the revitalization of rural areas
A key strategy for achieving rural revitalization is enhancing the protection of cultivated land to increase capacity while ensuring sustainable use and environmental preservation. The plan outlines specific tasks, including preventing the illegal occupation or destruction of cultivated land, safeguarding “permanent basic farmland” from being repurposed, guaranteeing the quantity of cultivated land, and improving and restoring its quality.
At the same time, the plan aims to strengthen the rights of rural residents who have migrated to urban areas. This will be achieved through new urbanization initiatives for the rural migrant population, including establishing a system that provides basic public services based on the place of residence. Additionally, it calls for policies to ensure that basic public services in urban areas are extended to all permanent residents, not just those with local household registration (hukou).
The plan also emphasizes safeguarding the legal land rights of farmers who move to cities by protecting their land contracting rights, homestead usage rights, and collective income distribution rights. It further proposes exploring the establishment of a voluntary, compensated mechanism for farmers who wish to relinquish these rights.
To prevent a return to poverty in areas previously targeted by poverty alleviation efforts, the plan prioritizes continued monitoring of vulnerable regions. It supports maintaining current assistance programs, providing aid to low-income populations, offering employment support, addressing gaps in rural infrastructure, and focusing on developing facilities that promote industrial growth in formerly impoverished areas.
Ensuring food security
A central focus of the plan is ensuring that China’s food supply “remains firmly in its own hands.” Food security has been a critical aspect of Chinese government policy in recent years, with self-sufficiency seen as a key solution to external shocks such as trade wars, supply chain disruptions, and adverse weather events. Major challenges, including the US-China trade war initiated by President Trump in 2018, supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, and severe flooding in key grain-producing regions, have heightened the urgency of these efforts.
To address this, the plan sets specific goals for maintaining and increasing food production:
- Ensuring stable land allocation for grain and cereal planting at approximately 1.75 billion and 1.45 billion mu, respectively (about 117 million and 96.7 million hectares);
- Implementing projects to improve grain yield per unit area;
- Increasing grain production capacity by 100 billion jin (around 50 million tonnes); and
- Gradually boosting grain production capacity to 1.4 trillion jin (around 700 million tonnes), a target China reached in 2024.
China’s grain production continues to grow steadily, reaching a record 706.5 million tonnes in 2024, a 1.6 percent increase from 2023. However, grain sown area expanded at a slower pace, rising only 0.3 percent year-on-year in 2024.
In addition to grain production, the plan emphasizes improving soybean and oilseed production capacity. As the world’s largest consumer and importer of soybeans, China has sought to boost domestic production through various measures, particularly by increasing crop yields via genetically modified (GM) and gene-edited (GE) soybean varieties. In late 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) approved 14 GM soybean varieties and 37 GM corn varieties for production. Since then, further approvals have been granted, including 13 GM varieties of cotton, corn, and soybeans, and five GE varieties of soybeans, corn, rice, and wheat.
These GM varieties, designed to be more pest- and herbicide-resistant with higher yields, aim to increase output, reduce waste, and maximize the use of limited farmland, thereby reducing dependence on imports.
Soybeans remain a critical component of China’s push for food self-sufficiency due to its heavy reliance on imports and struggles to increase domestic production. Despite record crop yields in 2024, soybean production fell by 0.9 percent compared to the previous year, with sown soybean land decreasing by 1.4 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
To further enhance crop production, the plan includes measures to support grain farmers by improving income assurance mechanisms, refining production subsidies, and enforcing the minimum purchase price policy. It also calls for greater support for major grain-producing counties, including an improved benefit compensation mechanism, equitable allocation of reward funds, and initiatives to strengthen public service capacity in these regions.
Additionally, the plan highlights strengthening the mayor’s “vegetable basket” responsibility system, which requires local governments to ensure an adequate supply of vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, aquatic products, and other foodstuffs within their jurisdictions.
Increasing income for rural residents
The plan emphasizes boosting rural incomes through a comprehensive strategy that includes industrial development, integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, employment support, entrepreneurship, and expanded rural consumption.
Income disparities between rural and urban populations remain a pressing issue in China. According to the NBS, the annual per capita disposable income of rural residents was less than half that of urban residents in 2024, reaching RMB 23,199 (US$3,190) compared to RMB 54,188 (US$7,451) for urban residents.
To address this gap, the plan promotes the growth of industries such as agriculture, animal husbandry, processing, rural tourism, and rural services. It highlights the importance of utilizing local resources and unique agricultural products (“local specialties”), establishing key agricultural production zones, and regions with advantageous specialty products. Efforts include agricultural branding, cultivating premium products, optimizing supply chain organization, supporting leading agricultural enterprises, and fostering partnerships between companies to build integrated industry chains.
The plan also aims to upgrade agricultural product processing by supporting the development of industrial parks in key production areas. It seeks to enhance rural logistics and distribution systems by improving wholesale markets and constructing suburban warehouse bases. Additionally, it encourages diversifying income streams for rural residents by linking traditional agriculture with emerging economic activities like “rural e-commerce” and integrating modern agriculture with leisure tourism and rural communities.
Stable employment for rural migrant workers is another priority, with a focus on job stability policies, skills training, and improved employment services. The plan also encourages entrepreneurship by supporting initiatives that inspire rural residents to return to or move to their hometowns to start businesses.
Accelerating the green transition
A key focus of the Rural Revitalization Plan is to promote sustainable, low-carbon agricultural development while improving the rural environment.
The plan encourages the adoption of environmentally friendly farming techniques, such as soil testing-based fertilization, increased use of organic fertilizers, and reduced reliance on chemical fertilizers for cash crops.
Green pest control methods and integrated pest management systems will be promoted, alongside water-efficient and drought-resistant agricultural practices.
To reduce agricultural pollution, the plan advocates for circular farming models, minimizing agricultural waste, and ensuring its safe reuse. Specific actions include introducing no-till or low-till farming methods, reducing methane emissions from farming and livestock, modernizing outdated machinery, and advancing research on carbon reduction technologies in agriculture.
In terms of ecosystem restoration and environmental protection, the plan emphasizes the conservation and rehabilitation of farmland, grasslands, forests, rivers, and lakes. Measures include implementing crop rotation and fallow systems, protecting grasslands, and managing natural and non-commercial forests. Restoration projects will target key rivers, lakes, and ecosystems, with efforts to conserve biodiversity and prevent invasive species.
The plan also prioritizes the thorough implementation of existing environmental and ecological protection initiatives, such as:
- The Great Green Wall (Three Norths Project, ): A long-term afforestation project launched in 1978 to build a windbreaking forest across northern China to combat desertification from the Gobi Desert.
- The Yangtze River’s Ten-Year Fishing Ban: Announced by MARA in 2020 and implemented in 2021 to preserve biodiversity and fish stocks in the Yangtze River.
- The “Clear Four Chaos” in Lakes and Rivers Campaign: Initiated in 2018 by the Ministry of Water Resources to address illegal occupation, sand mining, waste dumping, and construction in lakes and rivers.
The plan also seeks to tackle major ecological challenges, such as cleaning up river and reservoir disruptions, combating groundwater over-extraction, preventing soil erosion, and reducing heavy metal pollution in soil.
Additionally, it calls for improving the trading mechanisms for carbon emission rights, pollution discharge rights, and water use rights to support the green transition.
Improving welfare for rural residents
The Rural Revitalization Plan aims to enhance the livelihoods of rural populations by improving infrastructure, public services, and connectivity. Many rural residents still face difficulties accessing adequate healthcare and education, often needing to travel long distances to reach quality clinics, hospitals, schools, and other educational institutions.
Moreover, infrastructure in some rural areas remains underdeveloped, with many communities lacking sufficient roads, waste and sewage management systems, reliable energy supply, internet and communication networks, and durable, high-quality construction.
To address these challenges, the plan outlines measures to upgrade rural infrastructure, including:
- Enhancing road connectivity through the upgrading of rural road networks and the integration of urban-rural transportation;
- Strengthening water supply security with region-specific solutions, such as integrated urban-rural water systems, scaled centralized supply, and improved water quality; and
- Optimizing energy supply by reinforcing rural power grids and promoting clean energy.
The plan also aims to improve living environments by implementing rural construction initiatives, including a rural toilet revolution integrated with wastewater treatment, categorized sewage management, and efforts to eliminate large-scale polluted water bodies. Waste management will be addressed by promoting source reduction, local recycling, and improved hazardous waste disposal.
To enhance education, the plan proposes optimizing the distribution of educational resources in counties, improving the basic conditions for compulsory education, building urban and rural school communities, strengthening inclusive development of preschool education and special education, and enhancing teacher training.
In healthcare, the plan seeks to improve rural medical services by enhancing pandemic response capabilities, promoting the construction of county-level medical communities, strengthening basic medical insurance, major disease insurance, and medical assistance systems, and providing targeted services for elderly, maternal, and child health, as well as building public fitness facilities.
The plan also focuses on strengthening social welfare, particularly elderly care networks. It proposes improved facilities, community-based mutual assistance for the elderly, and tailored services to meet local needs, avoiding one-size-fits-all approaches. Pension systems will be refined, and care services for vulnerable groups, such as “left-behind” children, women, the elderly, and disabled individuals, will be prioritized, along with the development of accessible childcare services.
Opportunities for foreign companies under the Rural Revitalization Plan
The Rural Revitalization Plan provides a variety of opportunities for foreign companies to contribute to the transformation of rural areas, in particular in sectors such as modern agriculture, environmental restoration, infrastructure development, and rural services.
The plan notably dovetails with several fields listed the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries for Foreign Investment (2022 Version) (the “2022 FI Encouraged Catalogue”), which identifies industries where FDI is welcomed and treated with favorable policies.
In agriculture, the 2022 FI Encouraged Catalogue outlines specific areas such as the selection and breeding of new crop varieties in the provinces of Hubei, Guangxi, and Shaanxi (though it should be noted, foreign participation in GM and GE crops remains prohibited), as well as the cultivation of high-yield silage plants to improve livestock productivity. Foreign companies specializing in modern agricultural machinery and intelligent equipment are also well-positioned, particularly as China modernizes its agricultural systems to improve efficiency and sustainability.
These encouraged sectors are also reflected in the draft 2024 FI Encouraged Catalogue, which continues to emphasize the importance of high-tech and sustainable development.
Foreign companies interested in these opportunities should closely monitor the finalization of the 2024 FI Encouraged Catalogue and consider aligning their investment strategies with the outlined priorities. By doing so, they can leverage favorable policies, contribute to China’s rural revitalization efforts, and achieve sustainable business growth.
Original author information
China Briefing is one of five regional Asia Briefing publications, supported by Dezan Shira & Associates. For a complimentary subscription to China Briefing’s content products, please click here.
Dezan Shira & Associates assists foreign investors into China and has done so since 1992 through offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. We also have offices in Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, United States, Germany, Italy, India, and Dubai (UAE) and partner firms assisting foreign investors in The Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Australia. For assistance in China, please contact the firm at [email protected] or visit our website at www.dezshira.com.
