Abstract: Agricultural technology in ancient China is a key component of China’s agriculture. It is not only the source of modern agriculture in China, but also an important reference for future agricultural development. Through sorting out many classical agricultural books since the Han Dynasty, this paper analyzes the evolution of agricultural technology from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, expounds the ideas of ancient agricultural technology, and discusses the implications to China’s contemporary agricultural development. Results show that China’s agriculture can be roughly divided into three stages: primitive agriculture, traditional agriculture and modern agriculture. Since the Han Dynasty, in the field of agriculture, irrigation and aquaculture, the ancient agriculture specially emphasizes that the matching of agricultural production with natural factors, and agricultural reproduction is promoted through agricultural internal circulation in the process of invention and use of technology, and at the same time paying attention to the integration of intensive farming and fine farming with agrotechnical improvement. Generally speaking, modern agricultural development concepts, such as green agriculture, circular agriculture and intensive agriculture, are in line with the wisdom of agricultural practice embodied in ancient Chinese agricultural technology. These classics provide theoretical guidance and technical reference for current agricultural development. The multiple concepts of ecological balance, green cycle and pragmatism in ancient agricultural technology all enlightened that modern agriculture should comprehensively consider its social and industrial attributes on the basis of respecting the natural attributes of traditional agriculture, avoid various risks of modern agricultural development, and then promote the sustainable development of agriculture.