10 years on: Xi'an steps up its agricultural modernization

Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, has diligently implemented a dynamic rural revitalization strategy, developed its urban modern agriculture, and accelerated the construction of a modern agricultural production and operation system, over the past 10 years.

Xi'an's healthy grain production enjoys bumper harvests. [Photo/Xi'an municipal government's WeChat account]

The added value of the city's agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries industries exceeded the 20 billion yuan ($2.79 billion) and 30 billion yuan marks in 2014 and 2019 respectively. It even reached 34.37 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 16.84 billion yuan on 2012.

From 2013 to 2021, the added value of those sectors grew by an average 4.7 percent annually.

Guided by green development, Xi'an has promoted the gradual transformation of the agricultural development model. In so doing, it has striven to build modern, eco-friendly agriculture with high output, product safety and conservation of resources.

Last year, the city's vegetables, fruit, flower potted plants and tree planting achieved output values of 18.44 billion yuan, 9.76 billion yuan, 5.94 billion yuan and 1.94 billion yuan respectively. Those represented respective increases of 142.2 percent, 87.1 percent, 455.4 percent and 211.3 percent on 2012 levels.

In 2021, the proportion of the output value of the city's agriculture and forestry industries to Xi'an's total output value of its agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries sectors increased by 4.1 percentage points and 1.2 percentage points, respectively, compared with 2012.

An agricultural machine sprays pesticide in Xi'an. [Photo/Xi'an municipal government's WeChat account]

The city's grain production has also enjoyed bumper harvests year after year. In 2021, the city's grain yield was a record 367.2 kilograms per mu (0.07 hectare), an increase of 37 kilograms per mu compared with 2012.

The scale, quality and efficiency of the vegetable industry have improved as well. In 2021, the area of vegetables under cultivation reached 1.07 million mu, with a total output of 3.63 million metric tons, an increase of 270,600 mu and 1.35 tons on 2012.

Relying on its rich resources, Xi'an also regards the fruit industry as one of the leading agricultural industries and has built a group of high-quality fruit production bases.

In 2021, the area given over to fruit cultivation amounted to 738,500 mu, with an output of 1.01 million tons, an increase of 98,400 mu and 336,700 tons on 2012, with an average annual increase of 1.6 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively.

In addition, Xi'an has made every effort to promote the comprehensive and high-quality development of agricultural mechanization throughout the whole process. Its agricultural mechanization rate was 81.9 percent in 2021, an increase of 16.2 percentage points on 2012.