50 Years of Agricultural Mechanization in China

China is a large agricultural country and agriculture is the foundation of the national economy, with hilly and mountainous areas accounting for more than 60%. Most are run by small farmers, but there is also some development of agricultural cooperatives, agricultural machinery cooperatives and family farms. Since 1970, great achievements have been made in the development of agricultural mechanization in China in the past 50 years. China's agricultural machinery and equipment holdings, agricultural mechanization operation level, socialized service level have improved rapidly. China has made major breakthroughs in scientific and technological innovation in agricultural mechanization, and has been significantly enhanced in international cooperation and exchanges. China has a sound legal, regulatory and policy system for agricultural mechanization. Agricultural mechanization has provided strong support for China's food security, the transfer of agricultural labor force, the improvement of agricultural labor productivity, the rapid development of urbanization, and the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. A road of agricultural mechanization has been formed with Chinese characteristics. The environment of China's economic, technological and policy for agricultural mechanization development continue to improve. The priorities of future agricultural mechanization will be placed at developing resource- and labor- saving technologies, shifting focus from production to higher efficiency, as well as from single technologies to integrated technologies, and trend to intelligent agriculture, intelligent agricultural machinery development. The role of agriculture will become much more significant to national economy for it to keep high growth rate.