China’s agriculture has entered a new stage to strengthen reform and achieve further modernization based on a solid foundation, according to the Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu.

The State Council recently issued guidelines for agricultural modernization in the next five years as part of the 13th Five-Year Plan. The document specified a target for achieving “obvious progress” in agricultural modernization by 2020.

The plan was based on a judgment that agriculture modernization in China already has a solid foundation, which came from the country’s significant progress in agriculture of the past five years, Han said.

Modernization is the only way forward for agriculture, the minister said, adding that efforts should be made to promote supply-side structural reform and put in place the national grain safety strategy centered on increasing production and technological advances.

Specific targets in the plan includes 550 million tons of grain production, more than 97 percent of agriculture products qualification rate in routine monitoring, 70 percent of mechanization rate in farming, and 40 percent of land under moderately large-scale operation by 2020, Han added.

The plan highlighted changes in agriculture structure. Planting less corn and more soybeans, stabilizing pork supply and boosting dairy industry will be the main tasks, according to the minister.

To safeguard the bottom line for food security, the plan put forward the strategy of enhancing comprehensive production ability to secure grain capacity and increase self-sufficiency of supplies, Han said.