Guangxi Convenes Summary and Deployment Meeting for 2025/2026 Sugarcane Mechanized Harvesting Season

On May 20th, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region convened a video conference in Nanning to summarize and deploy work for the 2025/2026 sugarcane mechanized harvesting season. The meeting aimed to thoroughly implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important directives on sugarcane production, comprehensively review the experiences of the past mechanized harvesting season, analyze current difficulties and challenges, and meticulously plan key tasks for the upcoming season. Ten major sugarcane-producing cities across the region participated via satellite venues. Leaders from relevant autonomous region departments attended and delivered speeches. The conference highlighted that the 2025/2026 season marked the inaugural year of the 'Guangxi Three-Year Action Plan to Accelerate the Improvement of Sugarcane Mechanized Harvesting (2025-2027)'. Under the strong leadership of the Autonomous Region Party Committee and Government, agricultural machinery departments at all levels across the region overcame challenges and worked diligently, successfully completing the objectives for the first season and achieving breakthrough progress in multiple areas. The overall mechanized harvesting rate for sugarcane across the region reached a historic high, exceeding the target by 3 percentage points. Both the combined harvesting rate and the two-stage harvesting rate also saw significant improvements, with all three mechanization indicators setting new historical records. These achievements fully demonstrate the outstanding results of agricultural and agricultural machinery system cadres and staff across the region in confronting challenges and striving forward. However, the meeting also candidly acknowledged prominent issues and difficulties. These primarily include: the combined harvesting rate not meeting expectations, insufficient implementation of responsibilities in some cities and counties, and inadequate fulfillment of primary responsibilities by certain sugar manufacturing enterprises. Furthermore, the 'first cut' machinery for two-stage harvesting is still immature, making inspection difficult, and the capacity of agricultural machinery service organizations remains weak, with the service system requiring further improvement. The conference emphasized that agricultural machinery departments at all levels must maintain a clear understanding, confront problems directly, and avoid evasion. Looking ahead, 2026 marks the beginning of the '15th Five-Year Plan' and is a crucial transitional year for the 'Three-Year Action Plan'. The conference urged agricultural machinery departments at all levels across the region to strengthen confidence and face difficulties head-on, focusing on six key areas of work. Specific measures include: continuously enhancing inter-departmental collaboration to collectively improve mechanized harvesting levels; standardizing the implementation of operational subsidy policies, prioritizing support for combined harvesting models; conducting in-depth baseline surveys to provide accurate data support for the next season's work; accelerating research, development, and application to address technical bottlenecks such as the 'first cut' issue; establishing a strong safety defense line for agricultural machinery operations, strengthening operational training and risk control; and continuously improving publicity and guidance, promoting the 'Guangxi Agricultural Machinery' mini-program and the 'Didi Agricultural Machinery' platform to build social consensus. Finally, the meeting stressed that agricultural machinery departments at all levels across the region must thoroughly study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important directives on sugar industry development, earnestly shouldering the political responsibility for national sugar security. They must adhere to a problem-oriented approach, fully summarize and utilize the successful experiences of the past season, follow the principle of 'combined where feasible, two-stage where appropriate', and, based on local conditions, steadily plan and implement targeted work measures. By working together, they aim to collectively complete the goals set by the 'Three-Year Action Plan' and contribute significant agricultural machinery power to the high-quality development of Guangxi's sugar industry.