Key Focus! The No. 1 Central Document for 2025 Has Been Released

This is the 13th Central Document No. 1 guiding “agriculture, rural areas, and farmers” work since the 18th National Congress of the Party.

So, what are this year’s No. 1 Central Documents? “New Signal” And how will it impact our lives? Let’s take a detailed look at the highlights of Document No. 1 from the Central Committee ↓

Jin Wencheng, Director of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: This year’s No. 1 Central Document focuses on implementing the decisions of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee to promote the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas—thus, the emphasis is most strongly on “reform”! The goal is to use “reform”—this powerful tool—to tackle the difficulties and challenges facing high-quality development in agriculture and rural areas, thereby achieving the comprehensive revitalization of rural regions.

The primary focus of the reform is to “deepen the reform of the rural land system,” and further efforts must be made on the “three types of land.”

Contracted land We must effectively carry out the pilot program for extending land contract terms by another 30 years upon the expiration of the initial 30-year period. Building on the existing pilot programs in several provinces, we should further expand the scope of province-wide pilots to ensure that contracted land remains generally stable and is smoothly extended, thereby stabilizing and perfecting the land contract system.

Residential land Housing legally obtained by farmers can be revitalized and put to productive use through methods such as equity participation and cooperative ventures. However, during the reform of residential land, it’s crucial to firmly uphold the red lines and bottom lines. We must not allow city dwellers to buy residential land in rural areas, nor should we permit retired officials to acquire land in rural areas and build houses there. These bottom lines must be strictly maintained.

Collectively-owned construction land To carry out market-entry reforms, the key is to improve the distribution of benefits between collectives and farmers, ensure that existing construction land enters the market, strictly control new land additions, and enable farmers to share in the property gains generated during the market-entry process.

Tu Shengwei, Researcher at the Institute of Macroeconomic Research, National Development and Reform Commission: This year’s No. 1 Central Document highlights “promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas through deepening rural reform.” The document mentions a wide range of reform initiatives, but when summarized, these efforts essentially revolve around three key elements: land, finance, and human resources.

Regarding “money,” the No. 1 Central Document proposes to “ Innovative Investment and Financing Mechanisms for Rural Revitalization The goal is to leverage the fiscal sector’s ability to achieve significant results with minimal resources, and then guide and encourage more investment from financial and social capital into various areas of rural revitalization.

Regarding “people,” I believe there are primarily two groups involved. The first group is those who are willing to stay in rural areas and contribute to their development. We need to improve the corresponding mechanisms for cultivating and supporting them, enabling them to fully leverage their talents and demonstrate their abilities in the vast and promising countryside. The other group consists of rural migrants who have moved to urban areas for agricultural work. That’s why this document emphasizes the need to effectively address their most pressing concerns—such as education and healthcare—so that they can quickly settle down in cities and integrate into urban life.

Reform is a systematic undertaking, and the areas of people, land, and finance each have their own distinct reform tasks. Only by fostering synergistic effects can we fully ensure that our efforts to promote the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas proceed steadily and sustainably.

Jin Wencheng, Director of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: Placing “food security and the stable, secure supply of essential agricultural products” at the forefront of national security sends an important signal. Another notable feature of this year’s No. 1 Central Document is that it devotes the longest section—roughly one-third of its total length—to this topic, covering nine key areas. This provides a systematic framework and detailed arrangements for consolidating and further developing the food security policy system.

Of the nine aspects, the primary one is... Increased yield per unit area ! This year, we’re proposing to continue making steady progress in significantly boosting the per-unit yield of grain and oil crops. The key areas of focus are:

The first is “expanding the area”—from previous practices of managing plots spanning thousands of mu or tens of thousands of mu, we are now moving toward large-scale management covering entire townships and even entire counties.

Second, we must “focus on the entire process” and promote initiatives to boost yield per unit area. We should scientifically plan the entire workflow—from plowing and planting to harvesting, pest control, and management—to achieve overall improvements.

Third, we must achieve the integration of the “Four Good” principles—good farmland, superior seeds, advanced machinery, and sound farming practices—to drive substantial increases in per-unit yields across large areas.

Fourth, we must focus on combining the cultivation of new types of operators with supporting smallholder farmers, and treat these new business entities as key players in the initiative to significantly boost per-unit yields across large areas.

Jin Wencheng, Director of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: This year marks the fifth year of effectively linking the consolidation and expansion of poverty alleviation achievements with rural revitalization—and it is also the final year of the transition period, serving as the concluding year. Therefore, this year’s No. 1 Central Document focuses on the critical juncture of the impending end of the transition period and lays out a systematic plan for consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation achievements. We must strengthen monitoring to ensure that large-scale relapses into poverty or new instances of poverty do not occur; we must promote tiered and categorized assistance for low-income populations and underdeveloped regions; and we must carefully plan how policies can be effectively linked after the transition period ends. Overall, our primary task is to firmly uphold the bottom line of preventing large-scale relapses into poverty.

Lin Wanlong, Vice President of China Agricultural University: To firmly safeguard the bottom line against large-scale relapse into poverty, one of the most fundamental tasks is to uphold the "three guarantees" and ensure safe drinking water. The "three guarantees" refer to guaranteed access to compulsory education, medical care, and housing. At the same time, we should intensify support for industrial development and employment opportunities, making every possible effort to raise the income levels of people who have been lifted out of poverty in these regions. Special attention must also be paid to households that have been relocated through resettlement programs; their follow-up support policies must be effectively implemented, ensuring that they can move successfully, settle down stably, and achieve prosperity. Finally, and critically important, we must strengthen the effective management of assistance-based assets. This will ensure that the substantial assistance assets accumulated during both the poverty alleviation period and the transition phase continue to play a meaningful and sustained role, providing strong support as we move toward the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas.

Jin Wencheng, Director of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: The connotation of new-quality agricultural productivity is quite rich and encompasses today’s advanced technologies such as bio-breeding, drone technology, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies. The widespread application of these technologies can effectively transform the state of agricultural production development and plays a crucial role in accelerating our country’s agricultural modernization. We must seize the opportunities presented by this scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. In developing new-quality agricultural productivity, we need to focus on top-level design and, from both institutional and policy perspectives, establish mechanisms and systems that are well-suited to the development of this new-quality productivity, thereby supporting the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. At the same time, we must build an innovative system for agricultural science and technology, enhance our capacity and level of scientific and technological innovation, and create independent innovation platforms. By leveraging these platforms, we can drive the development of new-quality agricultural productivity and give wings of technology to China’s agricultural and rural modernization.

Lin Wanlong, Vice President of China Agricultural University: An important feature of Chinese-style modernization is its focus on large-scale, population-driven modernization. How can we ensure China’s food security and the supply of essential agricultural products? To achieve this, we must significantly boost our agricultural productivity. Therefore, the application of cutting-edge, modern technologies is of paramount importance to us—only in this way can we build ourselves into an “agricultural powerhouse.”

Tu Shengwei, Researcher at the Institute of Macroeconomic Research, National Development and Reform Commission: When we talk about “new-quality productivity,” we’re referring first and foremost to technological innovation—driven by disruptive technologies—as well as the optimized allocation of resources and the transformation and upgrading of industries. That’s why we’re seeing digital technologies being applied in the agricultural and rural sectors. These applications not only bring about a shift in traditional production models but also give rise to a new development paradigm: demand-driven, reverse-engineered from urban and rural residents’ needs, thereby promoting standardized and large-scale agricultural production.

Jin Wencheng, Director of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: This year’s No. 1 Central Document specifically calls for “developing county-level industries that enrich the local population.” The reason this emphasis is placed on counties is that our country’s integrated urban-rural development has entered a new stage. Counties have become the primary battleground for promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas and serve as both a key platform and an entry point for advancing urban-rural integration.

Lin Wanlong, Vice President of China Agricultural University: When we talk about the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, we must be clear that this is “the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas within the context of urban-rural integration.” Therefore, when we discuss industries that boost farmers’ incomes, we must consider the development of rural industries from a county-level perspective. The industrial chains and industrial infrastructure involved are not confined solely to rural areas; rather, they must be strategically coordinated and developed within the county as a whole. Thus, in my view, the development of income-generating industries at the county level is essentially aimed at promoting the development of rural industries.

Tu Shengwei, Researcher at the Institute of Macroeconomic Research, National Development and Reform Commission: Developing county-level industries that enrich the local population represents an excellent convergence point between rural and urban economies. Only by vigorously promoting these county-level industries—those with distinctive advantages, large employment capacity, and remarkable ripple effects—can we enhance our counties’ overall carrying capacity and governance capabilities, thereby fostering integrated development between urban and rural areas.

The No. 1 Central Document for 2025 has sounded the clarion call for the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. Let us look forward together to a bright future—under the guidance of these policies—where our agricultural foundation becomes even stronger, rural areas flourish more vigorously, and farmers lead increasingly prosperous lives!