Smart agriculture is a promising potential direction in modern agriculture worldwide. However, China’s agriculture is still limited by multiple constraints at present, such as resources, markets, and the environment. Therefore, smart agriculture can be expected to take as a breakthrough point, in order to promote the agricultural transformation and modernization. In this study, a systematic analysis was made on the current status of the research and application of the key technologies and equipment in smart agriculture. The main challenges were clarified to prospect the development trend and promotion path of China’s smart agriculture in the future. Specifically, 1) Smart agriculture serves as the modern advanced form to take the information and knowledge as the core elements. Smart agriculture aimed to realize the digital management, intelligent decision-making, automatic operation, precise input, and networked services, after the deep integration of advanced productive forces, such as modern information, industrial equipment, and agricultural biotechnology. 2) China’s smart agriculture relied mainly on three common supports: sensor and perception systems, decision-making models and algorithms, as well as intelligent platforms. Remarkable progress was made in the R＆D of sensor technologies, and the agricultural satellite remote sensing, as well as the agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing. Agricultural basic algorithms were continuously optimized to couple the animal and plant models, gradually shifting towards a multi-factor system. The R＆D of large agricultural artificial intelligence models was to facilitate the intelligent platform architecture. Data storage and management technologies were developed to integrate the application using knowledge graphs, indicating the hot spot. 3) The application scenarios of smart agriculture in China were constantly expanding under advanced technology. a) The frontier technologies, such as artificial intelligence and gene editing, were promoted to transform the breeding paradigm towards intelligence. b) The technical system of smart farms was gradually improved to initially achieve ‘machine replacing people’. c) Smart facility agriculture has advanced significantly to produce the core equipment in the construction of a high-end intelligent greenhouse. d) The livestock and poultry breeding have achieved significant advances in smart technology. The smart farms for dairy, pork, and poultry were at the top worldwide. e) Smart fishery was limited to the sensors, growth models, and special robots. A number of smart fish farms were constructed to accelerate industrialization. f) Smart agricultural product supply chains were still in the initial stage. The partial breakthroughs and application demonstrations were also observed in post-harvest processing, quality traceability, and smart storage and transportation. 4) There were still many challenges in smart agriculture, in terms of the key technology R＆D, technology transfer, and industrialization, and basic support systems. a) The basic model algorithms were insufficient to substitute for the high-end sensors and robots. b) The scientific and technological achievements were necessary to translate into practical applications. The chain ecosystem of the digital industry was also required to evaluate the integration and sustainability of application scenarios. c) The decision-making on the data resource was also required to strengthen the professional talents and farmers’ digital literacy. 5) Looking to the future, five strategic directions were recommended in China’s smart agriculture: the low-cost and high-precision agricultural information perception, agricultural artificial intelligence, agricultural low-altitude economy, small-scale smart agriculture, and ‘zero-carbon’ smart agriculture. The institutional framework and ‘digital foundation’ of smart agriculture should be consolidated to promote smart agriculture in China. Universities and research institutions should promote the R＆D of key technologies for smart agriculture and the cultivation of high-end talents. Technology-based enterprises should construct a market-oriented and sustainable smart agriculture industrial cluster. Agricultural business entities and farmers also need to promote the practical application of ‘scenario + chain’ in smart agriculture.

As the crop with the longest planting history, widest planting area, and highest yield in hilly and mountainous areas, the improvement of the comprehensive mechanization level of rice cultivation and harvesting is of great significance for promoting the comprehensive and high-quality development of agricultural mechanization throughout the entire hilly and mountainous area. This study takes the key technology of rice mechanization in hilly and mountainous areas as the incision, and based on the characteristics of hilly and mountainous areas in China and the current development status of rice mechanization in hilly and mountainous areas, conducts a technological frontier and trend analysis around the production mechanization of rice tillage, planting, harvesting and other main links, analyzes the gap in research and development of rice mechanization technology and equipment at home and abroad, explores the challenges faced by the development of rice mechanization in hilly and mountainous areas in China under different links, and looks forward to the future development trend of rice mechanization in hilly and mountainous areas, in order to provide new ideas and directions for promoting the overall mechanization level of rice production, filling the gaps in the development of agricultural mechanization in hilly and mountainous areas, and building up China's strength in agriculture. This study proposes that, the comprehensive mechanization rate of rice cultivation and harvesting in hilly and mountainous areas of China in 2022 is 80.8%, and the development is unbalanced and insufficient among different links and regions; Compared with advanced countries, the research and application of rice cultivation and harvesting machinery in China started relatively late, with a weak foundation and low comprehensive performance of products. Especially, there is a relative shortage of lightweight, efficient, and highly stable rice cultivation and harvesting machinery for hilly and mountainous areas. Key technologies such as engine high-power low emission design and manufacturing technology, tool wear resistance and consumption reduction optimization design technology, and frame lightweight design technology still need to be further overcome; Lightweight, intelligent, and green technologies are the future directions and trends for the development of rice production equipment in hilly and mountainous areas of China.