From the air, Yongfeng village in southwest China's Sichuan Province looks like a green grid drawn across the Chengdu Plain. Neatly arranged paddies are connected by irrigation channels and farm roads, while newly transplanted rice seedlings cover fields that have been redesigned to support mechanized farming.
Yet much of what matters here is new: squared-off fields, connected water systems, machines that can enter the paddies, and digital tools used to monitor the land.
On a recent visit to Yongfeng, Ma Jun, a rice scientist at Sichuan Agricultural University, watched an AI-guided drone work over a trial field before stepping into the paddies himself to inspect the results. His team is testing a full-chain model that combines Beidou-enabled unmanned farming, AI-based water and fertilizer management, and post-harvest loss reduction.
"The goal is to make higher yields achievable on a much larger scale," Ma said. "Agriculture will rely increasingly on technology and data rather than experience alone."
Sichuan, home to the Chengdu Plain long celebrated as the "Land of Abundance," has inherited an image of fertility and full granaries. Today, modern food security is a tough challenge. The province is one of China's 13 major grain-producing regions and the only one in the west, bearing responsibility for stable supplies of grain, oil crops and pork.
The challenge is that Sichuan is not a broad, uncomplicated plain. Its terrain is often summed up as "one part plain, two parts slope and seven parts mountain." In many places, farmland is fragmented, irregular, steep or scattered, making it costly to farm and difficult to mechanize.
That tension makes Sichuan's story more than just a provincial farming narrative. It offers a window into one of the central questions in China's food-security strategy: how to raise output and farm income under a strict cultivated-land protection system. Instead of relying on more farmland, Sichuan is trying to make difficult land work harder -- by reshaping fields, adapting machinery, improving irrigation and building more value around each harvest.
The answer starts with the most basic unit of farming: the field. Across parts of the Chengdu Plain, scattered and irregular plots have been consolidated into larger, more standardized blocks, with fields squared off, irrigation channels connected and farm roads linked. The geometry is not cosmetic. It determines whether machines can enter, whether water can be managed efficiently and whether farming can move beyond small, fragmented plots.
From 2021 to 2025, Sichuan built or upgraded more than 17 million mu, or 1.18 million hectares, of high-standard farmland, helping keep grain output above 35 million tonnes for five consecutive years. The province's next target is to hold annual production above 37.5 million tonnes by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030).
The figures point to a broader change in how Sichuan manages farmland. With good arable land limited, the province is trying to protect farmland more closely and use it more efficiently. Satellite remote sensing, drones and a mobile inspection system are being used to spot unauthorized land use earlier. The goal is to prevent the loss of farmland while making existing fields easier to manage in the context of modern farming.
Beyond the plain, the work becomes more difficult. In Sichuan's hilly areas, modern farming often requires reworking the land before machines can be used efficiently. Small and scattered plots are being merged, short strips lengthened, curved fields straightened and steep slopes eased. The purpose is practical: to reduce labor costs and turn low-efficiency or even abandoned slopes into more stable, higher-yielding farmland.
In Tucheng village of Santai County, where uneven, poor-quality land once verged on abandonment, farmer He Kai now runs large-scale grain and oilseed rotations on land that has been consolidated, leveled and improved. Wheat yields now exceed 450 kg per mu, while maize has risen above 500 kg per mu -- about twice what the land produced before.
Last year, He upgraded the integrated drip irrigation and water-fertilizer system on more than 200 mu of his land, lifting maize yields there to more than 600 kg per mu. He plans to further extend the system this year.
Water and machinery are being treated as part of the same productivity problem. In Sichuan's hills, farming becomes harder and costlier when irrigation is unreliable or machines cannot enter the field. The province has been linking ponds, hillside reservoirs, pumping stations and pipes into smaller irrigation networks, while promoting solar-powered pumps and water-saving systems.
It has also set up 33 testing scenarios in 30 key grain-producing counties to adapt farm equipment to slopes and fragmented plots. In 2024, Sichuan's mechanization rate for ploughing, planting and harvesting reached 60.14 percent, a sign that more difficult land is being brought closer to efficient farming.
Sichuan is also trying to make each field produce more value. One signature practice is strip intercropping of maize and soybeans. By arranging the two crops in bands and using their difference in height, farmers can largely maintain maize output while adding a soybean harvest.
In southern Sichuan, paddy fields are being used as mixed production spaces. Rice-crayfish and rice-fish systems combine staple grain with aquaculture, creating small farm ecosystems in which rice and aquatic farming support each other. This approach has enabled grain fields to generate greater value, allowing farmers to maintain stable rice yields while increasing their income from the same land.
The idea of a granary is also being extended beyond conventional cropland. In mountainous areas, Sichuan is promoting what it calls a "forest granary," using space beneath walnut, pomegranate and other economic forests to grow upland rice, konjac and medicinal plants. The idea is that staple farmland will be supplemented and the province's food-production base broadened.
Seeds form another part of the equation. Sichuan is one of China's core seed-production bases, especially for hybrid rice and rapeseed. More than 90 percent of its main grain and oilseed varieties under cultivation are locally bred. Hybrid rice seed production accounts for roughly one-fifth of China's total, while rapeseed seed production ranks first nationally. The province is also investing in livestock breeding, including the domestically developed Tianfu black pig.
The greater challenge lies in making grain production profitable. Sichuan's effort therefore reaches beyond the field into the businesses that surround farming: machinery services, processing, edible-oil production and organized procurement. For local farmers, the point is not simply to grow more grain, but to be drawn into a wider chain that makes staple farming more rewarding.
Sichuan's experience points to a more demanding phase in China's pursuit of food security. The old image of natural abundance is being supplemented by a more practical focus on field design, irrigation, machinery, seed capacity and rural industry. In the ancient "Land of Abundance," that means finding ways to make difficult terrain support more efficient, higher-value farming.