Smallholders are the main body of China’s agricultural producers, with a number of about 203 million, accounting for 98% of all kinds of agricultural production enterprises. They often invest excessive resources in the production process, and the efficiency of the resource utilization is low, resulting in serious environmental impacts, such as air pollution, soil degradation, eutrophication, and resource scarcity. Meanwhile, the environmental problems jeopardize the long-term sustainability of China’s food production. There is an urgent need to transform smallholders production systems toward sustainable production in China. In the difficult quest for achieving sustainable agriculture for smallholders production systems, it is suggested to promote the transition of smallholders in China from three aspects: overall layout, technical innovations, and field demonstrations. The Science and Technology Backyard (STB) model, which originated in China, unites different organizations such as the government, enterprises and cooperatives based on the STB, forming a participatory and customized technological innovation system to achieve the adaptive innovation and application of green production technologies. The STB program provides a good real-world example to show how to diffuse technological innovations on pilot sites to a regional level and promote the sustainable development of smallholders.
