On January 13-14, the 2014 annual conference of CAAS was convened in Beijing to wrap up the science and technology achievements in 2013 and set up the development goal of the coming year. President Li Jiayang delivered the working report entitled “Comprehensively deepen reform towards a world-class agricultural research institution” on the conference.


In 2013, China maintained a steady growth of agricultural production and farmers' income. Both grain yield and growth rate of the farmers’ income reached at a high level for the 10th consecutive year. As the national premier agricultural research institution, CAAS played an important and active role in ensuring China’s food security and food safety.

Totally, CAAS was granted with 6 national level prize and 63 ministerial/provincial level S&T awards in the past year, which reached a new record for the first time to maintain all the three national prizes in its history. It developed a maximum 190 new plant and animal varieties.

Innovation always plays an important and active role in S&T development. In January of 2013, CAAS launched the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (ASTIP ─one of the three on-going national-level innovation programs in China), an essential step toward its competitive ambition as a world-class institution in the near future. “In the coming year, the academy will recruit more top talents, improve research infrastructure and overcome mechanism and technical bottlenecks”, Li concluded at the end of the conference, “CAAS’ innovative capacity will be greatly enhanced with the implementation of the ASTIP”.

In 2014, CAAS will go on mandating to conduct basic and applied research to address both technical and policy issues in agricultural production, sustainable development, and the welfare of farmers; to contribute directly to agricultural modernization, rural development, and poverty elimination through technology transfer, partnerships, and support to agro-industries.

Some development priorities were identified during the conference, as: to accelerate the implementation of the ASTIP; to further optimize its research areas and priorities; to initiate and foster key research programs; to promote knowledge dissemination and technology transfer; to further strengthen capacity building; and to foster and strengthen partnership with world leading agri-research institutions and private sectors, etc.