According to the political operations and practices of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the annual No.1 Documents are regarded the party's most significant papers of the highest administrative priority. This study uses the five No.1 Documents issued by the CPC in the 1980s and four such documents issued from 2004 to 2007 to examine China's agricultural policies from systems theory, decision-making and comparative perspectives, and analyzes the decision-makers' cognition of problems, decision-making process and feedback mechanism. For new Chinese leaders, who play the role of policy initiators, obtaining effective information feedback in the complicated agricultural policy-making process, responding to farmers' appeals, and resolving conflicts and confrontations is a key administrative issue.