China will run a "Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand" programme to nurture agricultural science and technology companies: 100 leading enterprises, 1,000 fast-growing ones and 10,000 high-potential ones. Maierdan Mugaiti, vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA), announced it at a State Council Information Office press conference on 29 September, as part of Beijing's drive for self-reliance in farm science under the 15th Five-Year Plan.
Mugaiti said the contribution of scientific and technological progress to China's agriculture has passed 64%. He pointed to recent advances such as Chinese researchers' discovery of the principle by which a single plant cell develops into a whole plant.
Research will follow 11 priority areas, with crop cultivation, livestock and aquaculture, and agricultural product processing named first. Artificial intelligence is expected to change research methods, he said, while national laboratories, research institutes and leading universities will be steered to their core tasks to avoid low-level duplication.
"Agricultural scientific and technological achievements must ultimately be put to use in the fields," Mugaiti said, calling for closer work between scientists and companies and clearer routes from discovery to products and practice. The initiatives will cover farm machinery and equipment, agricultural biomanufacturing and AI-plus agriculture, with faster large-scale use of new technologies.
The report was written by Amanda Lim for AgNavigator.
Photo: Vmenkov / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: AgNavigator
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