The Agriculture Law of the People’s Republic of China was revised by the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress on 28 August 2026 and will take effect on 1 January 2027. The revised law contains 14 chapters and 115 articles covering agricultural production, food security, support policies, technology, agricultural resources, green development, farmers’ rights, rural development, supervision, and legal liability.
The revision updates China’s legal framework for agriculture and addresses food security, agricultural modernization, technological self-reliance, green development, rural revitalization, and farmer incomes. It emphasizes domestic production capacity and establishes a national food-security strategy based on domestic supply, production capacity, moderate imports, and technological support. The law also strengthens support through subsidies, price policies, agricultural insurance, credit, infrastructure investment, and compensation for major grain-producing regions.
Technology is a central component. The law supports artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), smart agriculture, modern breeding, agricultural machinery, and research on critical core technologies. A dedicated chapter on green agricultural development covers agricultural pollution, biological pest control, circular agriculture, ecological compensation, resource efficiency, and climate change. The law also incorporates the “Greater Agriculture Approach”/ “Greater Food Approach”, which extends the food-supply framework beyond staple grains.
The revised law sets priorities across agriculture
Area | Main provisions |
Overall policy | Agriculture and rural areas retain priority status in national development. The state promotes technology-based, green, quality-oriented, and brand-oriented agriculture and advances agricultural and rural modernization. |
Food security | The national strategy prioritizes domestic supply, production capacity, moderate imports, and technological support. It calls for basic grain self-sufficiency and absolute security of staple foods. |
Producer support | The law provides for prices, subsidies, agricultural insurance, fiscal transfers, and compensation for major grain-producing regions and counties. Price-support measures may be introduced when prices for important grains fall excessively. |
Reserves and monitoring | Central and local grain reserves, food-security monitoring and early-warning systems, emergency mechanisms, and grain-security and reserve targets are required. A national grain-risk fund may support reserves and market stability. |
Investment and finance | Agriculture remains a priority for fiscal expenditure. The law covers rural credit, subsidized loans, agricultural credit guarantees, policy-based agricultural insurance, premium subsidies, bonds, and agricultural futures markets. |
Technology and digitalization | The law promotes agricultural science and technology self-reliance, original innovation, critical core technologies, enterprise-led innovation, AI, IoT, and smart agriculture. |
Seeds and machinery | The state supports breeding, improved varieties, key breeding technologies, seed-industry development, plant variety rights, and the purchase and use of advanced and appropriate agricultural machinery. |
Farmland and green development | The law maintains strict farmland protection, including special protection for permanent basic farmland. It addresses high-standard farmland, black-soil protection, degraded and saline-alkali land, biological pest control, lower-toxicity inputs, waste recycling, ecological compensation, and climate change. |
Farmers’ rights | The law protects land-contract, land-operation, homestead-use, and collective-income rights. Farmers who move permanently to cities retain their lawful rural land rights. Authorities and collective organizations may not force farmers to buy specified inputs, use particular sales channels, or undertake specified production activities. |
Trade and cooperation | China encourages agricultural imports, exports, services trade, foreign investment, and international cooperation. An agricultural import early-warning system permits measures when imports have caused or may cause significant adverse effects on domestic agricultural production. |
Three changes strengthen the legal framework
Food security prioritizes domestic capacity
The law defines the national food-security strategy as “relying primarily on ourselves, basing supply domestically, ensuring production capacity, allowing moderate imports, and relying on science and technology.” Imports therefore remain part of the strategy, while domestic production capacity, farmland, technology, reserves, and producer incentives form its foundation. Provisions on compensation for grain-producing regions, subsidies, insurance, and price support reinforce this approach.
Technology gains a strategic role
The law calls for high-level agricultural science and technology self-reliance and stronger capabilities in original innovation and critical core technologies. It supports seed security, AI, IoT, smart agriculture, advanced machinery, and enterprise-led innovation. At the same time, it supports international exchanges in agricultural science, technology, and education, as well as the introduction of advanced foreign technologies.
Green development receives a dedicated chapter
The dedicated chapter on green agricultural development covers resource-efficient production, biological pest control, lower-toxicity pesticides and veterinary drugs, microbial fertilizers, circular crop-livestock systems, agricultural-waste recycling, ecological compensation, and responses to climate change.
The law shapes agribusiness conditions
The provisions support agricultural modernization in areas including advanced machinery, smart agriculture, AI, sensors, precision farming, irrigation, breeding, biological crop protection, agricultural insurance, food processing, and green technologies. Technologies that raise yields while reducing fertilizer, pesticide, water, energy, or labor use correspond to several priorities stated in the law.
For foreign companies, the law combines support for foreign agricultural investment, technology introduction, and international cooperation with priorities concerning food security, seed security, and technological self-reliance. Article 36 encourages agricultural trade while establishing an import early-warning mechanism. The state may take necessary measures if specific imports have caused or may cause significant adverse effects on related domestic agricultural production. This suggests that opportunities for foreign companies will increasingly depend on how their products, technologies, and investments contribute to China’s domestic modernization priorities, while imports that compete directly with strategically important domestic production may face greater policy scrutiny.
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