How large is China's rural industry? A recently released national plan, the "15th Five-Year Plan for Accelerating Agricultural and Rural Modernization," sets a target for the value-added of agriculture and related industries to reach 25.8 trillion yuan by 2030. This figure represents an increase of over 5 trillion yuan from the 20.6 trillion yuan recorded in 2024, indicating significant expansion for the agribusiness sector over the next five years.
Expanding into Manufacturing and Market Services
In economic statistics, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a common indicator that includes the value-added from primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. How does the value-added of agriculture and related industries mentioned in the plan relate to this? What exactly does it encompass? According to an expert from the National Development and Reform Commission, this metric represents the value-added created by all resident units in China engaged in agricultural and related production activities over a specific period. It encompasses not only the value-added from the primary sector but also relevant contributions from secondary and tertiary industries, embodying the concept of a comprehensive "big agriculture."
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2024, the national value-added of agriculture and related industries reached 20.6 trillion yuan, accounting for 15.29% of GDP and being 2.25 times the value-added of the primary sector alone. The expert noted that while the primary sector's share of GDP has declined, the economic value generated by agriculture has not "shrunk." Instead, it has extended from traditional farming and breeding into processing, value addition, and market services. Modern agriculture has evolved beyond its conventional image and is now expanding into factory floors and final market destinations.
This metric has shown steady growth in recent years, increasing from 16.7 trillion yuan in 2020 to 20.6 trillion yuan in 2024, a rise of approximately 3.9 trillion yuan over four years. The change is not only quantitative but also qualitative. Within the 2024 total, the shares of value-added from the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors were 44.4%, 27.1%, and 28.4% respectively. This indicates that "external" segments like processing, distribution, and services now account for over half, showing the industry's focus is shifting towards the entire value chain.
Beyond the changing shares of the three industrial sectors, the plan provides another perspective: the ratio of the output value of agricultural product processing to total agricultural output value. The expert explained that the value-added of agriculture and related industries is an absolute measure reflecting the total value-added created by the entire agricultural industrial chain. In contrast, the processing-to-output ratio is a relative measure reflecting the capacity for processing and transforming agricultural products. A higher ratio indicates more developed processing, greater extension of the industrial chain, and higher added value. The former is about "growing the pie," while the latter is about "optimizing the structure"; both are essential and mutually supportive.
Data shows China's ratio of agricultural product processing output to total agricultural output improved from 2.3:1 in 2018 to 2.65:1 in 2024. The plan aims to raise this ratio to 3:1 by 2030. The expert analyzed that this means the same scale of agricultural output can drive higher processing and conversion value. The continued push for processing and value addition will effectively promote the growth of the value-added of agriculture and related industries.
Promoting Integrated Development Across the Value Chain
According to the plan, over the next five years, the value-added of agriculture and related industries is projected to increase by approximately 5.2 trillion yuan, equivalent to adding an economic output the size of Anhui province's annual GDP. The total increase is expected to exceed 25%. How will this increment be achieved? Agricultural product processing is a key focal point. In 2025, China had over 100,000 large-scale agricultural product processing enterprises, generating operating revenue of about 18 trillion yuan, with a primary agricultural product processing conversion rate of 75%.
The plan calls for promoting the transformation and upgrading of the agricultural product processing industry. It emphasizes vigorously developing deep processing and comprehensive utilization of agricultural products, fostering and expanding leading processing enterprises, and excelling in value addition from "grain to food," "livestock to meat," and "agriculture to industry." In simpler terms, this means enabling farmers to earn more not just by selling raw materials but also through processing and sales, achieving integrated development "from start to finish." The expert stated that according to the plan's target, by 2030, the total output value of agricultural product processing is expected to reach three times the total agricultural output value.
Aiming in this direction, various regions are intensifying efforts to develop agricultural product processing. For example, in Yongcheng, Henan province, a single wheat grain can be transformed into hand-torn bread or crystalline fructose, significantly increasing its value. The chairman of a local flour company described a comprehensive industrial chain where every part of the wheat is utilized: front-end for dumpling flour, mid-end for bread flour, back-end for sachima (a pastry), wheat germ for cakes, and bran for biscuits. On this industrial chain map, each wheat grain is endowed with multiple values. The price of a specific wheat variety can jump from 2,700 yuan per ton as raw grain to 25,000 yuan per ton as final food products, truly achieving maximum utilization.
Beyond processing and value addition, there is also a focus on leveraging local characteristics. The plan proposes fostering and expanding distinctive rural industries, explicitly promoting the cluster development of such industries, cultivating 3,000 nationally designated key leading agricultural enterprises, and developing "chain leader" enterprises. Focusing on distinctive rural industries, many regions have introduced policy measures this year. For instance, Jilin province issued a three-year action plan outlining key tasks including developing 10 rural wealth-enhancing characteristic industries. Shandong province specified vigorously developing characteristic industries, aiming to create specialized villages with industry output exceeding 30 million yuan and specialized towns exceeding 200 million yuan, while revitalizing a group of leading enterprises with high industrial development levels and strong connections to farmers.
In the expert's view, developing distinctive rural industries forms the foundation for advancing comprehensive rural revitalization. Over the next five years, efforts should focus on implementing actions to upgrade these industries, developing specialty cultivation, distinctive food products, and traditional handicrafts. Promoting the deep integration of agriculture with culture, tourism, education, health, and sports industries, and fostering "small but beautiful" rural cultural and tourism formats will make rural characteristic industries more competitive and benefit more farmers.
Enabling Farmers to Share More in Value Chain Gains
As village "businesses" grow larger, what benefits can local residents expect? A direct change is that avenues for income growth will extend from the fields to processing workshops, logistics warehouses, and e-commerce platforms, leading to increased farmer incomes. Data shows that in 2025, the per capita disposable income of rural residents reached 24,456 yuan, and the urban-rural income ratio decreased from 2.56 in 2020 to 2.31 in 2025. By 2030, this gap is expected to narrow further.
The plan includes a dedicated section on increasing farmer wealth, proposing to drive income growth through industry and employment. It guides farming households to develop courtyard economies, handicraft workshops, and other family-operated projects, expanding the channels and methods for farmers to participate in industrial development. The expert believes that the process of achieving the 25.8 trillion yuan target is also a process of transitioning farmers from "selling raw materials" to "selling products" and "selling services," thereby increasing their incomes. Secondary and tertiary industry segments like agricultural product processing, cold chain logistics, and rural tourism can absorb a large number of rural laborers for local employment, opening new channels for income growth.
Whether the gains from industrial value addition fully reach the pockets of farming households depends not only on how much the industry expands but is also closely related to the plan's indicator for the "proportion of farming households led by new types of agricultural business entities." The expert noted that in recent years, China's new types of agricultural business entities have continuously developed and expanded. By the end of 2025, the country had cumulatively fostered over 2 million farmer cooperatives and nearly 4 million family farms. These entities establish benefit-sharing connections with smallholder farmers through methods like order-based procurement, land transfers, shareholding cooperatives, and托管services. The "proportion of farming households led" refers to the coverage of these benefit-sharing relationships.
According to the plan, by 2030, the proportion of farming households led by new types of agricultural business entities is targeted to reach 63%, an increase of 9.5 percentage points from 2024. Simultaneously, the plan proposes improving the development quality of family farms and farmer cooperatives, perfecting efficient and convenient agricultural socialized service systems, refining support policies for these entities linked to their role in increasing farmer incomes, and implementing actions for these entities to enhance quality and efficiency to drive income growth for smallholders.
The expert believes that increasing the proportion of farming households led by new types of agricultural business entities relates both to "who operates agriculture" and "who shares in the development benefits." These entities, through scale operations and socialized services, can effectively address practical challenges in agricultural production like labor shortages and capability gaps, helping smallholders solve problems of "inability to farm, poor farming, or unprofitable farming." Furthermore, by promoting the upgrade of benefit-sharing mechanisms from methods like order procurement and land transfers to tighter forms like shareholding cooperatives and profit-sharing, farmers can share more in the gains from the industrial chain's value addition, better driving income growth and prosperity for farmers.
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