The Shanghai municipal government recently held a press conference as part of its series on launching the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. Officials introduced the "Shanghai Comprehensive Rural Revitalization '15th Five-Year Plan'" and addressed questions from the media.
A reporter inquired about the recent trend of many Shanghai rural areas gaining popularity on social media and becoming "internet-famous" destinations. The question focused on specific measures to transform this short-term visitor traffic into sustainable development and increase the sense of benefit for both urban residents and rural villagers.
Feng Zhiyong, Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, stated that the online popularity of rural areas is a reflection of their vitality. He cited the recent Shanghai Rural Spring Tourism Season, a joint initiative by the Commission and the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, which attracted 9.49 million visitors and generated consumption of 260 million yuan. However, he emphasized that transitioning from fleeting popularity to sustained success requires greater focus on enhancing intrinsic quality and improving long-term mechanisms.
Key Development Areas for the "15th Five-Year Plan" Period
During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Shanghai will comprehensively apply valuable experiences from model initiatives. Efforts will focus on two main dimensions: building livable, business-friendly, and beautiful villages, and promoting the integrated development of rural industries.
Regarding the development of livable and beautiful villages, by the end of 2025, Shanghai had established 339 beautiful village demonstration sites and 164 rural revitalization demonstration villages. Construction has begun on 12 pilot zones for harmonious and beautiful villages. Projects like beautifying rural courtyards, organizing overhead utility lines, village-wide cleaning, improving rural roads, and managing water, sewage, and waste have shown significant results. The upcoming plan aims to develop at least 50 integrated zones for livable and business-friendly villages, address shortcomings in modern living conditions, create green ecological spaces, strengthen integrated construction and management, and comprehensively improve both the appearance and substance of rural areas to ensure lasting beauty. Simultaneously, efforts will enhance rural governance, cultural standards, and basic public services to raise living standards for residents.
Fostering Integrated Rural Industry Growth
In terms of promoting integrated rural industry development, by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Shanghai had five national-level key counties for leisure agriculture, 47 beautiful leisure villages, 114 high-quality enterprises, and 204 star-rated rural homestays. Brand events like the Peach Blossom Festival and local culinary festivals have been established. A series of integrated agricultural, cultural, and tourism brands, including "National Rural Tourism Quality Routes," have taken shape, making rural areas key destinations for urban leisure tourism.
Moving forward, Shanghai will deepen the transformation of leisure agriculture and rural tourism towards a model combining "products, services, and experiences," building a micro-holiday service system that links agriculture, culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions. For instance, initiatives will cluster activities like special markets, cultural performances, exhibitions, and wellness services in rural areas. Leveraging ecological resources, new formats like camping, pet-related, and "trunk economy" activities will be developed based on local conditions, offering unique rural experiences such as birdwatching, stargazing, and outdoor sports.
Leveraging Proximity to the Metropolis
Capitalizing on the advantage of being close to a megacity, Shanghai will enhance the operational management of rural industries, improve supporting production and living services, integrate rural industries into the urban industrial chain, cultivate rural creative industries, and attract new economic entities to settle in rural areas. The goal is for villages to not only support the well-being of residents and offer leisure experiences for urbanites but also to host entrepreneurial dreams, fully realizing their ecological, cultural, and social functions.
Another media question addressed how Shanghai, as it builds itself into a world-class socialist modern international metropolis, will promote higher-level development of urban modern agriculture during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.
Director Feng Zhiyong explained that the Plan outlines a series of specific measures focusing on three comprehensive aspects: comprehensively securing the foundation for grain and important agricultural product safety, enhancing agricultural production capacity and quality efficiency across the entire chain, and improving the urban modern agricultural management system throughout all stages, coordinating development both within and outside the city's domain. The plan also includes arrangements for accelerating the development of new quality agricultural productive forces.
By the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan," Shanghai's contribution rate of agricultural scientific and technological progress reached 81.7%, ranking first nationally, with its comprehensive agricultural modernization level remaining at the forefront. Significant breakthroughs were achieved in key areas like seed innovation, biomanufacturing, and intelligent agricultural machinery. This year, a global-first RNA bactericide developed by a Shanghai company, Atrium Therapeutics, officially received approval for registration.
For the "15th Five-Year Plan," the Commission has planned layouts for optimizing agricultural technology innovation tracks, coordinating technological and institutional innovation, deeply integrating technological innovation with industrial innovation, upgrading agricultural innovation platforms, and strengthening domestic and international agricultural technology cooperation networks.
Expanding Local Specialty Brands
With the current season for local melons and fruits, a reporter asked if more branded local specialties would reach consumers' tables during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, noting the popularity of items like Nanhui 8424 watermelons and the emergence of new niche brands.
Zhang Zhitong, Deputy Director of the Commission, stated that during the upcoming plan period, Shanghai will build on existing work by mapping the entire industrial chain for local specialties, cultivating a batch of "small, refined, special, and excellent" single-product agricultural brands, further solidifying the brand matrix, and continuously enhancing the market influence of local agricultural products.
For grains and vegetables, efforts will improve quality evaluation for local premium rice, along with standards for production, processing, and storage, promoting the rice industry to "sell brand rice." The municipal "Shencheng Vegetables" brand will lead in creating a "1+N" vegetable brand system, making the Shanghai flavor in citizens' "vegetable baskets" more distinct.
For livestock, poultry, and aquatic products, branding efforts will focus on local specialty breeds such as the "three black and one white" native pigs (Jiading Meishan, Chongming Shawutou, Jinshan Fengjing, and Pudong White), Chongming white goats, Fengxian pheasants, Jinshan meat pigeons, as well as bred varieties like the "Jianghai 21" Chinese mitten crab and "Husu No. 1" grass carp.
Regarding economic crops, potential industries like Chongming golden melons and Jinshan mushrooms will be fully explored, aiming to create no fewer than 10 regional public brands for single economic crop categories.
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