Representatives and committee members from Shaanxi have put forward suggestions on leveraging specialty industries and technological innovation to boost rural development. "We must focus on seed cultivation and technology promotion, strengthen brand development and protection, and enhance the market competitiveness of specialty agricultural products," said delegate Ji Guiling. Committee member Qi Zhifeng emphasized, "The key is to rely on county-level advantageous resources to cultivate leading industries in various regions, creating a development pattern of 'one brand per county' and 'one specialty per township'." Delegate Ma Hongli predicted, "In the future, agricultural robots will become the new farming tools, making farming easier and more efficient for farmers."
The government work report proposes prioritizing agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, deeply learning from and applying the experience of the "Thousand Villages Demonstration, Ten Thousand Villages Improvement" project, enhancing the effectiveness of policies supporting and benefiting farmers, and further strengthening the agricultural and rural foundation to improve development quality and efficiency. As 2026 marks the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, doing a good job in agricultural, rural, and farmer-related work is crucial. During the Two Sessions, Shaanxi delegates actively offered advice on how to drive rural development through specialty industries and empower rural revitalization with technology.
First, developing distinctive rural industries by stabilizing acreage, increasing yield per unit area, and enhancing disaster resistance to achieve another bumper harvest. Solid efforts will be made to effectively consolidate and expand the achievements in poverty alleviation and link them with rural revitalization, maintaining the scale of employment for the formerly impoverished population above 30 million. After carefully studying the government work report, National People's Congress delegate Ji Guiling, director of the Yulin City Mizhi County Gaojian Guiling Apple Planting Professional Cooperative, felt greatly encouraged. She stated that the goal is to improve industry quality, enhance brand effectiveness, and increase farmers' incomes by strengthening the entire chain of apple planting, processing, and sales. Industrial revitalization will drive comprehensive progress in talent, culture, ecology, and organization, steadily making the countryside more beautiful and the people more prosperous.
In 2012, leveraging the advantages of Mizhi's optimal apple-growing region, Ji Guiling established an apple planting cooperative, leading local residents to create the distinctive brand "Mizhi Women's Mountain Apples." The government work report calls for cultivating and expanding rural specialty industries and improving the level of deep processing of agricultural products. As a grassroots NPC delegate and industry leader, Ji Guiling shared that the cooperative insists on empowering the specialty industry with technology, actively introducing new superior varieties, promoting integrated drip irrigation and fertigation technology, and building a green pest control system to ensure fruit quality from the source. Simultaneously, breaking away from traditional sales models by combining offline wholesale with online live streaming and community group buying, and developing agritourism picking gardens. Through brand cultivation and channel expansion, they aim to solve the problem of "good fruit not fetching a good price." Today, the cooperative produces an average of 250,000 kilograms of fruit annually, with products sold to many regions, becoming a shining example of Mizhi's rural revitalization.
Agriculture and rural areas are the foundation of the country and vital to the people's livelihood, serving as fundamental support for national security and public well-being. "The key to rural revitalization lies in industrial prosperity. I will closely integrate my hometown's distinctive apple industry with rural revitalization, increase investment, strengthen technological support, focus on seed cultivation and technology promotion, enhance brand development and protection, and improve the market competitiveness of specialty agricultural products," Ji Guiling stated.
Second, enabling rural industries to go further. Improving the quality and efficiency of agricultural and rural development hinges on industrial revitalization. "Enhancing the level of rural industrial development helps activate rural resource elements, broaden channels for farmer employment and income increase, attract outstanding talents and university graduates to return to their hometowns, and promote comprehensive upgrading of agriculture and rural areas," said National Committee member Qi Zhifeng, chairman of Shaanxi Tianlong International Auction Co., Ltd. Promoting rural industrial development and increasing farmers' incomes have been key focuses for Qi Zhifeng in recent years. In 2023, he initiated and participated in the Shaanxi fruit and vegetable supply project to Hong Kong and Macao, selling specialty agricultural products like Xianyang apples, Shangluo potatoes, and Baoji radishes to Hong Kong and Macao, and promoting the systematic development of fruit and vegetable supply bases for these regions in Shaanxi.
Through his involvement in agricultural and rural development, Qi Zhifeng continually ponders how to enhance the level of rural industrial development. "Various regions should, based on county-level natural conditions, industrial foundation, and market demand, scientifically delineate industrial zones for specialty planting and breeding, agricultural product processing, and rural tourism to avoid homogeneous competition. The focus should be on relying on county-level advantageous resources to cultivate leading industries in each area, creating a development pattern of 'one brand per county' and 'one specialty per township'," Qi Zhifeng said. Additionally, he believes that the value leap of agricultural products lies in brand empowerment. It is necessary to accelerate the standardization and branding of agricultural products, establish and improve a whole-process standardization system for production, processing, and circulation, and promote the certification of green, organic, and geographical indication agricultural products. This not only builds a solid food safety defense from the source but also effectively increases the added value of agricultural products.
Leading enterprises are the "locomotives" of agricultural development and a key force driving agriculture from traditional to modern, from extensive to intensive. Qi Zhifeng suggested intensifying efforts to cultivate leading enterprises. By fostering new types of agricultural business entities and improving benefit-linking mechanisms, characteristic agriculture can be promoted to develop from fragmented to intensive and upgrade from single production to the entire chain.
Third, using "intelligence" to spawn new agricultural paradigms. Under the wave of the digital revolution, cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence are deeply integrated with agricultural production, giving rise to new paradigms of smart agriculture. The government work report proposes promoting the research, development, and application of advanced and suitable agricultural machinery and equipment, and bridging the "last mile" in agricultural technology extension. In recent years, National People's Congress delegate Ma Hongli, Party branch secretary of Changjia Village, Dongcheng Subdistrict, Dali County, has been continuously thinking about and practicing how to promote the application of new quality productive forces in agriculture. Dali County is a core production area for winter jujubes in China. "The village lacks labor, the cost of hiring people to pick winter jujubes is increasing, and ripe fruit must be harvested quickly; otherwise, it falls," Ma Hongli said. Last year, she actively connected with the robot R&D team from Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen) to develop a winter jujube picking robot. Early this year, a technically iterated second-generation winter jujube picking robot was tested in Changjia Village, accelerating its move from the laboratory to industrial application.
"In the future, agricultural robots will become the new farming tools, making farming easier and more efficient for farmers. I suggest including agricultural robots in the scope of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, providing corresponding subsidies, and opening up scenarios like fruit and vegetable picking and management in national modern agricultural demonstration zones to accelerate the application of new quality productive forces in agriculture," Ma Hongli said. "'Agriculture + artificial intelligence' can better solve the problem of 'who will farm the land'," Ma Hongli believes. The addition of AI can make farming more efficient, not only solving labor issues but also attracting more young people to return to their hometowns. Furthermore, Ma Hongli stated that in the wave of digitalization and intelligentization, farmers must not be left behind. She hopes to provide some specialized training for farmers to promote the transformation of traditional farmers into "new farmers" who understand data analysis and robot operation and maintenance.
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