Smart agriculture is the inevitable trend of future agricultural development and is of great significance for raising the overall effectiveness and core competitiveness of agriculture. With the rapid development of high-standard farmland construction and appropriately scaled operations, building up China's agricultural strength urgently needs strong support from smart agriculture.

At present, problems remain in the development of smart agriculture nationwide that need urgent attention: the smart agriculture innovation system needs strengthening, the integration of agricultural big data applications is weak, high-quality smart agriculture talent is in short supply, and cross-departmental coordination is insufficient. Facing new models and new business forms of modern agriculture, policies and measures need to be further improved to better lead smart agriculture R&D and application and accelerate the cultivation of new quality productive forces. To this end, Cao Weixing, Standing Committee member of the CPPCC National Committee, vice president of the Western Returned Scholars Association and former vice minister of Natural Resources, suggests:

First, give greater prominence to innovation and R&D in key technologies and equipment.Accelerate the layout of major collaborative research tasks in smart agriculture, encourage interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration among education, science and industry, and carry out major research at different levels from applied basic research and key technology breakthroughs to equipment product development. Integrate domestic superior resources, break down disciplinary barriers, and build cross-disciplinary, cross-field national and international smart agriculture research platforms (such as major science and technology infrastructure, frontier science centers, key laboratories, and industry-education integration innovation platforms) to lead the innovative development of smart agriculture nationwide.

Second, accelerate the joint development and sharing of agriculture-related big data across provinces, cities and counties.Oriented to industry management and industrial demand, strengthen the top-level design and standard-setting for national agricultural and rural big data, and accelerate the integration and sharing of agriculture-related data at provincial, municipal and county levels. Based on collaboration among government, education, science and industry, deepen the mining and comprehensive use of agricultural and rural big data, and improve its ability to support farm production guidance, market demand forecasting and agricultural decision support. Improve the rules and standards for data circulation, smooth data channels, raise the efficiency of data use among multiple actors, and empower the high-quality development of digital villages and smart agriculture with data as a factor of production.

Third, pay attention to training multi-level smart agriculture talent.Issue guiding guidelines and policy documents to steer agricultural universities in creating smart agriculture interdisciplinary programs and majors, support the joint building of new education organizations such as smart agriculture colleges by education, science and industry, and cultivate high-level top innovative talent as well as versatile applied talent. Explore and improve publicly funded student programs to train smart agriculture talent on order for grassroots agriculture and rural departments. Using the "Leading Goose Program" as a lever, strengthen training on smart agriculture topics and for new farmers, and raise the digital literacy and practical skills of agricultural operators, extension workers and agriculture administrators.

Fourth, establish a sound coordination mechanism for advancing smart agriculture.Pool the efforts of multiple departments including development and reform, finance, industry and information technology, science and technology, education, natural resources, agriculture and rural affairs, and big data, establish a departmental coordination mechanism, smooth the virtuous circulation of resources, and create a good environment for policy coordination. Integrate industry-leading forces, establish cross-department and cross-field smart agriculture innovation consortia, and, oriented to industry demand, promote the whole-chain integration of applied basic exploration, key technology R&D, smart equipment creation, technology integration and demonstration, and commercialization of results, advancing innovation and scenario application in smart agriculture as a whole.

Fifth, continuously increase support for smart agriculture development.Establish a special smart agriculture science and technology innovation program and organize major collaborative research. Set up an independent smart agriculture industry technology system, accelerate the building of a batch of smart farms, and promote the deployment and spread of diversified smart agriculture solutions. Provide comprehensive preferential support in finance, fiscal policy, land and taxation to smart agriculture companies. Formulate special reward and subsidy policies for social service organizations providing smart agriculture technical services. Strengthen the recruitment and training of high-level smart agriculture talent, optimize talent incentives and service guarantees, and provide core momentum for building China's agricultural strength.