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Despite recent persistent rain in central China’s Henan Province, Shen Jifeng’s 600-mu (about 40 hectares) of contracted farmlands in the city of Xinxiang have largely avoided water-logging.

Outfitted with water pumps, sprinklers and smart sensors, these farmlands in the Pingyuan Pilot Zone of Xinxiang are part of “high-standard cropland” supported by modern infrastructure and advanced technologies.

“The land has been levelled, and drainage ditches have been added along the edges, allowing water to drain quickly from the fields,” Shen said.

“High-standard cropland” has been written into a resolution adopted at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in July.

According to this resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernisation, the country will improve the mechanisms for developing, verifying, managing, and protecting high-standard cropland, as one of the concrete measures of deepening reform of the land system.

High-standard cropland, also called well-facilitated farmland, requires sci-tech support for disaster prevention and control, soil quality and fertility improvement, and farmland management based on information technology.

The CPC and the Chinese government have stressed the importance of high-standard cropland in important meetings and documents, including the government work report delivered during the second session of the 14th National People’s Congress this March.

According to a 10-year development plan released in 2021, China will build 1.2 billion mu of high-standard cropland, and renovate and upgrade 280 million mu of existing high-standard cropland by 2030. — Xinhua.