More bountiful granaries: In 2025, Sichuan's grain output reached a record high of 73 billion jin (36.5 million tonnes), elevating its crop seed industry to the national front ranks. The province's rapeseed seed production area remains the largest in the country. By the end of 2025, the comprehensive mechanization rate for crop cultivation, planting, and harvesting in Sichuan had risen to 65.2%.
More tightly integrated industrial clusters: As of now, Sichuan has built 24 national-level modern agricultural industrial parks, the most of any province. It has also established 12 national-level advantageous and distinctive industrial clusters and holds 259 regional public brands.
In the height of summer, the scent of rice fills the air as contiguous fields in Gongle Town, Xingwen County, Yibin City, enter the harvest season. Several harvesters move through the paddies, efficiently completing the processes of cutting and threshing before the grain is immediately loaded for transport. The area is equipped with drying barns capable of holding 16 tonnes of grain per unit, which can fully dry a batch in just 12 to 16 hours. As one of the earliest regions in Sichuan to begin the rice harvest, Xingwen County has planted 191,000 mu (approx. 12,733 hectares) of rice this year, with mechanical harvesting expected to account for 93% of the total, achieving a projected output of 106,500 tonnes.
Mindful of food security as a paramount national priority, Sichuan has made the creation of a higher-level "Tianfu Granary" in the new era its primary task for advancing rural revitalization and agricultural modernization. This involves driving the deep integration of high-quality farmland, superior seeds, advanced machinery, and efficient farming methods, bringing vitality to the vast Bashu plains.
Preserving and Enhancing Farmland: Diversifying Output from Every Mu
In early August, a major grain grower in Lixing Village, Huanglu Town, Zhongjiang County, Deyang City, tallied his income gains from the edge of his field. "The fields have been improved, so farm machinery can get in. We switched to high-quality rice varieties, and the per-mu yield has increased from an initial 1,100 jin to 1,500 jin," he said. This rise in output is rooted in the strategy of "storing grain in the land." The action plan for building a higher-level "Tianfu Granary" in the new era, issued by the provincial party committee and government, prioritizes "preserving and building good Tianfu farmland" as its top task. This involves both steadily increasing the area of arable land and improving grain production capacity, while also meticulously implementing a "safety net" for farmland protection through layered accountability.
To increase area, Sichuan has taken decisive action since 2022 to eliminate all abandoned farmland and to systematically phase out "greenhouse villas" and low-yield plantations. It has also directed project funds towards newly reclaimed farmland to accelerate soil fertility recovery. Over the past four years, the province has added over one million mu (approx. 66,667 hectares) of grain-producing farmland. To uphold the bottom line, the province strictly enforces the most stringent arable land protection system, safeguarding the red line for permanent basic farmland. In 2022, Sichuan fully established a five-tier farmland chief system at the provincial, city, county, township, and village levels, with top party and government officials at each level serving as the local farmland chief. In 2025, the provincial level launched the construction of a unified "spatial governance map" to further clarify the management boundaries of farmland, forests, and gardens.
How can a single mu of land yield more variety and generate greater income? In Xingwen County, a new season of crayfish farming is already on the agenda. "After the rice harvest each year, farmers flood the winter paddy fields to raise crayfish, harvesting them before the next year's rice transplanting. This achieves 'double harvest from a single field'," said a local agriculture bureau official. In the first half of this year, Gongle Town sold 1.41 million jin (705 tonnes) of early-season crayfish, with sales revenue exceeding 31.2 million yuan. Across the province, innovations in planting models—from soybean-corn strip intercropping and "rice+" integrated farming to the "Tianfu Forest Grain Bank" initiative—are not only unlocking the potential of "one piece of land" but also tapping into hillside and forest resources to expand food sources, significantly boosting the comprehensive output value per unit of land.
Technology Empowerment: Boosting Total Output by Increasing Per-Unit Yield
Within a few milliliters of clear, colorless liquid in a test tube lie the integrated markers of 5,000 rice germplasm resource polymorphisms. Acting like a "gene fishing net," this technology can accurately determine, even before a seed is planted, whether a single rice plant is lodging-resistant or will produce fragrant cooked rice. At the Institute of Biotechnology and Nuclear Technology of the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, this "Sichuan-made core" of rice breeding, named "Tianfu Daoxin No. 1," is revolutionizing the rice breeding timeline. "By using the chip to conduct gene screening in the lab in advance and eliminate ineffective individual plants, we've shortened the overall breeding cycle by over a third," said Wang Ping, deputy director of the institute. Breeding is no longer a "blind box" operation.
With agriculture taking on the "wings" of technology, the "biological clock" of the fertile fields seems to have been sped up. Centered on the strategy of "storing grain in technology," Sichuan is focusing its efforts on the research, development, and promotion of new varieties, new technologies, and new equipment in the grain and oil sector to increase total output by raising per-unit yields. In recent years, the province's grain output has consistently remained above 70 billion jin (35 million tonnes). In 2023, a three-year campaign to significantly upgrade seed production bases was launched. Subsequently, key tasks such as a province-wide survey of germplasm resources, the reform of agricultural research institutes, and the establishment of the Sichuan Seed Industry Group were completed. Furthermore, for three consecutive years, Sichuan has implemented the "Tianfu Granary: A Hundred Counties, A Thousand Plots" construction action, deploying hundreds of expert teams and tens of thousands of agricultural technicians to demonstrate and promote improved seeds, machinery, and techniques on a large scale.
In Yongfeng Village, Taihe Town, Dongpo District, Meishan City, automated irrigation valves, water quality monitors, and IoT insect pest trapping lamps are neatly arranged like a squad of "sentries." "With their help, we can monitor soil moisture, pest conditions, and seedling growth in real time," said Li Xueping, the village party secretary. Today, for farmers in Yongfeng, the entire process of cultivation, planting, harvesting, and drying can be managed through a closed-loop intelligent system, overseeing 30,000 mu (2,000 hectares) of rice paddies via a single network. How can Sichuan, with most of its farmland located in mountainous and hilly areas, achieve agricultural mechanization? Since 2023, through the "Tianfu Good Machinery" initiative, the province has been continuously introducing new farm machinery and expanding its application scenarios. By the end of 2025, the comprehensive mechanization rate for major crops in Sichuan had increased to 65.2%, marking the entry of grain crop production into a mechanization-dominated era.
Building Clusters and Strengthening Chains: Securing a Higher Value Within the "Circle"
Not long ago, Feng Hu, head of the Dongliyuan Family Farm in Shehong City, Suining, sold the last batch of wheat from his warehouse. "The market purchase price for wheat this year is 1.2 yuan per jin, but I sold mine for 1.4 yuan per jin," he said. Why did his wheat fetch an extra 20 cents per jin? The secret lies in the fact that Feng Hu grows special-purpose wheat for brewing in Gailiang Village, Qinggang Town. This wheat has strict standards for softness rate, protein content, and starch structure, and it supplies a local liquor company exclusively. Shehong City has now built a 200,000 mu (13,333 hectares) ecological liquor grain base, covering 45 contract farming entities and driving income growth for over 60,000 farming households in the production area.
Connecting the planting and processing chains yields a higher "value." Promoting the building of industrial clusters and strengthening industrial chains is a critical step for Sichuan in transforming agriculture into a modern, large-scale industry. Last year, the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a plan for cultivating billion-yuan level advantageous and distinctive agricultural industries. This plan focuses on building a trillion-yuan livestock industry, a five-hundred-billion-yuan grain and oil industry, and billion-yuan industries in vegetables, fruits, tea, sericulture, aquaculture, and medicinal and edible homologous products. It clarifies a "roadmap" for building clusters and strengthening chains, with leading and supporting enterprises at the core. Currently, Sichuan has built 24 national-level modern agricultural industrial parks, the most in the country; 12 national-level advantageous and distinctive industrial clusters, ranking second; and in 2025, the revenue of agricultural product processing enterprises above designated size exceeded 830 billion yuan. The province also holds 259 regional public brands. Building clusters and strengthening chains is driving Sichuan's agricultural industry and brands to continuously expand their depth on the track of high-quality development.
Inside the exhibition hall of the Tongwei Group, dozens of large screens display a shimmering interplay of light and shadow, laying out the industrial chain of 11 tracks within the green agriculture sector. Starting from Sichuan, Tongwei has become a world-leading integrated enterprise in aquatic feed and livestock and poultry feed. "Rooted in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, we are deepening our efforts in the specialty aquatic tracks of crayfish and cold-water fish roe. The company uses the shrimp industry as its entry point to target the domestic market, while also laying out plans in Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America to tap into the trillion-yuan new market for shrimp consumption," said a company representative.
Comments