At a recent agricultural science and technology innovation conference, Sichuan Province took stock of the progress achieved during the 14th Five-Year Plan period and laid out its strategic roadmap for the 15th. The province has set an ambitious goal to raise the contribution rate of agricultural scientific and technological progress to 70% by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, leveraging robust innovation to underpin the construction of a modern agricultural powerhouse.

To achieve this, Sichuan will focus on breakthroughs in five key areas to comprehensively enhance innovation efficiency. A total of 500 million yuan will be invested over five years to support joint breeding research, with the target of establishing 45 national and provincial core breeding farms and cultivating 7 breakthrough new varieties by 2030. The province will also launch a new round of the "Tianfu Liangji" (Sichuan Good Machinery) three-year action plan, which includes building a pilot and maturation base for agricultural machinery in the hilly areas of Dazhou and an agricultural machinery industrial park in Leshan. The initiative aims to develop and refine 30 types of intelligent and new-energy agricultural equipment, pushing the comprehensive mechanization rate for crop cultivation and harvesting to 80%.

Furthermore, 500 million yuan has been allocated to support the deep processing of agricultural products. The goal is to raise the ratio of the agricultural product processing industry's output value to the total agricultural output value to above 3:1, while targeting an added value of 660 billion yuan for the primary industry. To drive digital transformation, Sichuan plans to establish 50 smart agriculture demonstration zones and 300 smart farms, promoting the deep application of big data and artificial intelligence in the sector. Additionally, efforts in biomanufacturing will be intensified, with the creation of 20 key counties for straw feed utilization, aiming to increase the straw feed utilization rate to 35%.

Alongside these efforts, the province will accelerate the development of three major innovation platforms. This includes competing to establish the Chengdu National Agricultural High-Tech Industry Demonstration Zone and jointly advancing the construction of the Yazhou Bay National Laboratory's Chengdu Grain and Oil Crop Test Base and the Wan'an Laboratory. Ten pilot-scale transformation platforms will be set up to bridge the gap in commercializing research results. Furthermore, more than 100 typical scenarios for agricultural low-altitude economy applications will be released, and 1,500 agricultural science and technology experiment sites will be established across 176 agriculture-related counties.

In terms of nurturing key entities, Sichuan will implement the "Ten-Hundred-Thousand" plan for agricultural technology enterprises, aiming to cultivate 10 leading enterprises, 100 growth-oriented enterprises, and 1,000 potential enterprises. The province will also refine its training mechanisms for young scientific and technological talent, with a goal of having more than 20 individuals selected for the "Shennong Talent" program during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. To strengthen grassroots support, technology special envoy teams will be dispatched to provide on-site services, training 50,000 grassroots agricultural technicians and cultivating 6,000 agricultural technology and machinery instructors each through the "One Village, Six Personnel, One Anchor" program.

Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Sichuan has closely aligned its work with industrial needs, focusing on key technology breakthroughs and the application of research findings. The province's agricultural science and technology advancement contribution rate has reached 65.8%, 1.8 percentage points higher than the national average. This progress is reflected in four key areas of strength: a stronger seed sector, demonstrated by the establishment of the nation's first comprehensive provincial-level germplasm resource center and the development of 297 major new crop varieties, including the "Chuanxiang Black Pig," the country's first breakthrough paternal breed with fully independent intellectual property rights. Agricultural equipment support has also been enhanced, with the comprehensive mechanization rate for crop cultivation and harvesting increasing by 26.9 percentage points since 2020, thanks to the "Tianfu Liangji" initiative. Platform empowerment is another area of strength, with 5 modern agricultural science and technology demonstration bases, 9 field scientific observation and research stations, 1 national "Belt and Road" joint laboratory, and a total of 380 national and provincial agricultural innovation platforms established. Finally, the promotion system has been strengthened, with the coverage rate of improved crop varieties and the rate of technology adoption remaining stable at over 95%.