Agtech front and center in China’s 2026 No. 1 Document
China’s top leaders don’t want innovation confined to cities and factories.
On February 3, the Party Central Committee and State Council released the 2026 No. 1 Document, setting out key rural policy priorities for the year.
- Boosting agricultural production capacity tops the to-do list again this year – but the Party's thinking around how to do that is evolving.
The 2026 document pushes for innovative technologies to increase farm productivity, calling for more biotech crop and livestock breeding, smart machinery, drones, robots, and AI.
- This marks the doc's first-ever mention of farm drones and robots – categories in which China has been developing world-leading products for years now.
Don't forget: The average age of China's farm workers is widely estimated to be over 50 – and rising.
- Mechanization and automation will be crucial to avoiding a demographic disaster in the next few decades.
The document's push to reform and expand China's agricultural extension system – helping connect farmers with new technologies, techniques, and inputs – is an even bigger deal.
- The doc explicitly links extension system reform with the need to speed up "dissemination of agricultural science and technological achievements" to farmers.
The bottom line: The Party center isn’t just backing better farm tech – it’s building the systems needed to get it into farmers’ hands.
What's next: Expect agtech to feature heavily in the 15th Five-Year Plan's rural development strategy when it finally drops next month.