To fully exert the fundamental and leading role of standardization in pushing forward rural revitalization in all respects, the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs, Standardization Administration of China and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly released the Action Plan for Rural Revitalization Standardization recently.

Approved by the Inter-Ministerial Joint Meeting on Standardization Coordination and Promotion under the State Council, the Plan will be implemented by 33 departments.

According to the Plan, by 2025, the standards system for high-quality agricultural development will be basically established. A total of 1,000 national and industrial standards will be developed and revised in the agricultural sector with prominently improved consistency with international standards, and 30 standards systems will be established for the whole industrial chain of modern agriculture.

The standards system for rural construction will take initial shape. A batch of national, industrial and local standards will be developed and revised, and around 1,500 beautiful and livable villages for demonstration at the national level will be established.

The demonstration role of standardization will be strengthened. A total of 100 national demonstration areas for agricultural standardization will be created, where the agricultural standardization service and promotion platform will play a further important leading role. The standardization demonstration projects for high-quality agricultural development will be further implemented, and 300 national standardization demonstration bases throughout modern agricultural industrial chain will be built.

The Plan also proposes 11 main tasks in four aspects. To move faster to build up China’s strength in agriculture, four tasks, including perfecting standards in fields of food security, agricultural product quality and safety, full industrial chain of modern agriculture as well as green development of agriculture, are deployed to promote the rejuvenation of rural industry in all respects.

To coordinate the layout of rural infrastructure and public services, three tasks, namely strengthening standards on the construction of rural houses and infrastructure, improving the standards system for rural living environment, and enhancing the support of rural public service standards, are deployed to make efforts to build beautiful and harmonious countryside that is desirable to live and work in.

To consolidate and expand the achievements in poverty alleviation, the task for improving the standardization level is deployed to help forestall any large-scale relapse into poverty. To raise the level of standards implementation, three tasks including optimizing the standards supply structure, deepening the construction of pilot, demonstration and service system, and enhancing the international cooperation on standardization are deployed to promote the effective implementation of standardization measures for rural revitalization on all fronts.