With the wide applications of modern information technology in agriculture, agricultural intelligent technology revolution with manifestation of smart agriculture is coming. Smart agriculture is an advanced stage in the development of agricultural informatization from digitalization to networking to intelligence, it forms a new way of agricultural production, i.e., taking information and knowledge as the core elements, and integrating modern information technology such as internet, internet of things (IoT), big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, intelligent equipment, and so on, to realize agricultural information perception, quantitative decision-making, intelligent control, precise input, and personalized service. Smart agriculture is a milestone in the development of agriculture and has become the development trend of modern agriculture in the world. In this article, the policies, measures, and programs for encouraging the development of smart agriculture issued by Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and other countries and regions were summarized, the development history from 1.0 version to 4.0 version of agriculture and development status of smart agriculture in China were also analyzed: remarkable results has achieved, at the end of 2017, the proportion of internet access in administrative villages reached 96%, 204,000 villages established the AgroSciences Information Agency, the retail sales of rural networks reached RMB 1.25 trillion Yuan, 426 cost-effective agricultural IoT products and technologies have been formed by the implementation of IoT pilot project. Behind the rapid development, smart agriculture in China still faces the problems of lack of basic research and technology accumulation, technologies such as sensors for agriculture, animal and plant models with intelligent decision-making, intelligent and precise operation equipment are the main short-boards. The pilot construction projects for the application of smart agriculture have been carried out all over the country, however, the role of display was greater than the actual effect. In order to solving the problems and achieving development demand, the strategic objectives of breaking through the core technologies, realizing the three major changes of "machine replacing manpower", "computer replacing human brain", and "independent technology replacing imports", improving the agricultural production level of intelligence and management network, accelerating the popularization of information services, and reducing application cost, providing farmers with personalized and precise information services that are affordable, and well-used, greatly improving agricultural production efficiency, and guiding the development of modern agriculture were proposed. Based on the analysis above, finally, eight key tasks including developing agricultural sensors, large-load agricultural UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) protection systems, smart tractors, agricultural robots, agricultural big data, agricultural artificial intelligence, integrated applications and smart agricultural industry, and five policy recommendations including strengthening government support, formulating relevant subsidy policies, strengthening technical standards, and opening data sharing for the future development of smart agriculture in China were proposed.
