Welcome Remarks

"The abundance of national granaries serves as the cornerstone for safeguarding national food security." Against the backdrop of an increasingly complex and volatile international landscape, China's development now confronts escalating uncertainties and multifaceted challenges. This necessitates enhanced agricultural monitoring and early-warning systems to strengthen supply guarantee mechanisms, stabilize market expectations, increase confidence, and facilitate sustainable income growth in rural economies. The year 2025 represents a pivotal juncture, marking both the conclusion of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the preparatory phase for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan. During this critical transition period, strengthening the release of agricultural product market information and expectation guidance, and continuously releasing the China Agricultural Outlook Report for the next 10 years, are important measures to implement the major strategic deployment of the party and the country on agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. They are of great significance for enhancing the supply guarantee capacity of important agricultural products such as grain, improving the coordination mechanism of agricultural product trade and production, and achieving the maintenance of agricultural product prices at a reasonable level.

Since its inception in 2014, the China Agricultural Outlook Conference has been convened annually in April alongside the release of the China Agricultural Outlook Report, establishing an institutional framework characterized by standardized scheduling and procedural formalization. The conference has increasingly become an important public platform for understanding agricultural conditions and sharing information at home and abroad. As an important achievement of the agricultural monitoring and warning system with Chinese characteristics, the China Agricultural Outlook Conference has played a positive role in enhancing the initiative of agricultural product market regulation, improving the control of various market entities in responding to market changes, and continuously expanding the discourse power in the international market. It was officially included in the "China US Economic and Trade Phase I Agreement" in January 2020.

Over the past twelve years, China Agricultural Outlook has served as a cornerstone for important national decisions and has continuously promoted innovations in core technologies for agricultural monitoring and warning. China Agricultural Outlook has gradually played a leading role in information sharing and steadily enhanced its global influence.

The upcoming 2025 Agricultural Outlook Conference will focus on "Strong Warning, Stable Expectations, and Increased Confidence". The conference will release China's agricultural outlook report for the next 10 years, projecting future agricultural development trends, consolidating consensus on future agricultural development, releasing positive signals of stable production, supply, and price, correctly guiding domestic and foreign market expectations, continuously enhancing the ability of stable and safe supply of agricultural products, and assisting in the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas and the construction of national agricultural power.

The conference is guided by the Market Early Warning Expert Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, hosted by the Institute of Agricultural Information of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and co organized by the Information Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the China Agricultural Society, the Big Data Development Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and the National Agricultural Exhibition Hall (China Agricultural Museum).

The Conference will complete the following tasks. The first is to release the "China Agricultural Outlook Report (2025-2034)" and forecast the market trend for the next 10 years. The second is to conduct a thematic analysis of the supply and demand situation of agricultural products by variety. The third is to focus on high-level forums on agricultural hotspots such as food security and changes in consumption structure, development of smart agriculture, coordination mechanisms for agricultural product trade and production, management of agricultural product market expectations, AI+ data element empowerment of market monitoring and early warning, and development of characteristic agricultural product markets and industries.

We sincerely welcome people working in the agricultural community and friends from home and abroad to the Conference to share insights and plan for the future.

We eagerly look forward to meeting you at the Agricultural Outlook Conference on April 20th!

April, 2025