Abstract:Food security is a top priority in national governance. Since 1949, high-standard farmland construction, agricultural mechanization development, and agricultural technology promotion have all contributed to the grain production. To ensure grain security, China has drawn a “red line” of 1.8 billion mu (about 120 million hectares) as the official minimum of arable land. At the same time, increasing the investment of capital goods such as fertilizer and pesticides can no longer produce more food. Due to the extensive farming method in the past, the continuous increase in total grain output becomes difficult in the future. With the rapid development of advanced technologies such as informatization, intelligence, Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence, fine management of agricultural production can be achieved. Through the integration of digital economy and traditional agricultural industries, developing smart agriculture will provide possibilities for increasing food production. Focusing on the three stages of grain production (including pre-, during- and after-production), this study puts forward the Nine-Step Approach of smart agriculture, namely two refinements, three changes, three reductions, and one use. For each step, the connotation, the existing technical bottleneck, and the potential of future improvement are discussed. In addition, suggestions for further development of smart agriculture are made from four perspectives, namely, data collection, data standardization, data applications, and data security.