As cheaper rice imported from overseas pinches profits, many small and medium-sized grain enterprises are facing difficulties, he said.

China has 9 percent of the world's arable land and 6.5 percent of its fresh water resources, producing a quarter of the world's grain and feeding nearly one-fifth of the world's population.

It's not an easy task. China's arable land is shrinking amid the urbanization drive. It has a "red-line" guarantee that the amount of land dedicated to arable farming shall never shrink to less than 120 million hectares.

Overuse of water and chemical fertilizers are another concern.

Liu Lifang, a farmer from Tanghe county of China's Henan province, has reduced chemical fertilizer use after authorities began providing free soil testing for 190 million farmers annually since 2005.

"The experts gave us fertilizer recommendations based on the results," Liu said, adding that such method has cut down costs, boosted grain output, improved fertilizer efficiency and reduced pollution.

However, chemical fertilizer use still hit 59 million tons in 2013. The method is expected to be applied among more Chinese farmers.

Developing modern agriculture

Ye Xingqing said the key to cope with the challenges lie in promoting new models of agriculture and improving productivity.

In Henan, Zhonghe Group installed advanced irrigation facilities in a large cropland, which can save 70 percent of electricity, 50 percent of water and 90 percent labor compared with traditional methods.

"Using it to irrigate a 1,000-mu field of wheat only needs three farmers to work within an hour," said Wang Wenming, a staff from the company. "That's the power of modern agriculture."

In China, a farmer can plant around seven mu of cropland on average, while a farmer can plant hundreds mu in Europe and even tens of thousands mu in the US with help of agricultural machinery, said Zheng Xinli, deputy director of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

The "No 1 Central Document", the first major policy document of each year released by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, stressed in February that the central government will strive to transform the development mode of agriculture and boost policies that benefit farmers.

In the long run, the goal of modern agriculture development lies in high efficiency, product safety, resource saving and environment friendliness, said Qin Fu, a researcher of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.