The meeting agreed that China should follow the concept of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development in its rural work for the next five years.

Food security stressed

China renewed its commitment to safeguard food security in the conference.

"Food security is the bottom line of agricultural structural reform," said the statement, adding that the government will secure the supply of staples, protect farmland and maintain production capacity.

The government will offer preferential policies to large-scale grain farms while making sure that farmers benefit from agricultural development. It will also improve the price formation mechanism and government purchase measures for important farm produces.

Priority for fiscal support

China also pledged to make rural areas and agriculture a priority for government fiscal support to develop rural economy and lift the remaining poor out of poverty.

The government will channel more money to rural areas and encourage private investment into rural and agriculture projects, according to the statement.

There have been calls to further tap into the potential in the countryside and promote an integrated development of the agricultural, industrial and service sectors, to increase farmer's incomes, the statement said.

In the statement, the government reiterated its aim of lifting all poor people out of poverty through precise poverty relief measures.