The exhibition hall becomes a "gourmet street" at the 8th China Grain Trade Conference in Changsha. (Photo/Fu Jingyi)

Themed "Ensuring Food Security with Collective Efforts, Promoting Integration of Production and Sales for Development," this year's conference featured an exhibition area of about 100,000 square meters and 13 specialty exhibition zones, making it the largest in its history. More than 3,100 enterprises and over 20,000 industry personnel attended.

Grain circulation connects production and consumption, serving as a key driver for coordinated regional development. The conference created favorable conditions for enterprises to invest or expand business in central China, witnessing the signing of eighteen inter-provincial, six government-enterprise, and twelve enterprise strategic cooperation agreements,  as well as six consumption assistance agreements and seven university-enterprise talent cooperation agreements.

Mutually beneficial cooperation is crucial to tackling global food security challenges. Efforts should be made to make the most of both domestic and international markets and resources, enhancing food security resilience through open cooperation. The conference featured an international premium products zone to facilitate cross-border grain supply chains and cooperation. Meanwhile, the China-Kazakhstan grain trading platform started operation, offering a new, standardized, efficient, and convenient online channel for grain trade.

A number of intelligent grain machines are on display, leveraging technology to boost industrial competitiveness. (Photo/Fu Jingyi)

Accelerating intelligent and green transformation of the grain industry requires boosting industrial competitiveness through technological innovation. The conference featured specialized zones for research achievements and talent development, highlighting new progress in discipline development, talent cultivation, and industry-education integration,  to boost the vitality of technology and talent in driving grain and storage sector development.

Developing the whole grain industry is conducive to improving grain resource utilization, optimizing people's dietary structure, and promoting nutritional balance, being of great significance for enhancing national food security and public nutrition and health. The conference conducted in-depth discussions on the provincial implementation of the whole grain industry, directly addressing pain points and difficulties in industrialization, whole grain promotion, and supply-demand adaptation.

Hunan, a major grain-producing region in China, produced over 62 billion jin (about 31 million tonnes) of grain in 2025, marking the sixth consecutive year with grain output staying above 60 billion jin (about 30 million tonnes).

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Pang Yuehui

Chinese source: Chinanews