Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, the CPC Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has placed great emphasis on the work concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers, advancing the modernization process of agriculture and rural areas in the new era and achieving significant historical achievements. However, it is important to recognize that factors such as market constraints and resource limitations mean that agriculture, rural areas, and farmers remain a weak link in China's modernization development, making it urgent to accelerate the building of a nation with strong agriculture.

President Xi stated that "building a country with strong agriculture requires technology and depends on reform." Advancing the institutional reform of agricultural technology is the only road to rapidly building a strong agricultural sector, achieving high-quality development in agriculture and rural areas, and forming new quality productive forces in this regard.

Addressing inadequacies and shoring up weak links

Since the launch of the new round of reform of the scientific and technological system, China has further clarified its strategic orientation regarding agriculture as a national priority, reinforced the central role of agricultural enterprises in technological innovation, and removed institutional and mechanism constraints that hinder the innovation motivation of scientific research staff. This has laid a solid institutional foundation, resulting in the contribution rate of scientific and technological progress to growth of the agricultural sector exceeding 63%. However, compared with other world powers, China still needs to improve its overall level of agricultural technology.

Efforts should be sped up to approve projects that meet market demands and ensure the long-term sustainability of agricultural technology. Generally speaking, the current agricultural technology projects exhibit a tendency toward "more projects designed by academic experts, fewer market-oriented projects, and fewer projects with long-term sustainability." Given that agricultural technological innovation highly relies on fundamental work in the long run, research efforts with extended cycles require more stable funding and support.

The management review mechanism should better align with industrial demands for scientific research organizations. Despite significant efforts by local authorities and departments to innovate agricultural technology systems, issues like the repetitive establishment of low-level projects and inadequate transformation of technological achievements still persist.