“The food security concept of mutual assistance and cooperation has been running through thousands of years of agricultural civilization in China, and has been one of the main reasons for China's self-sufficiency in agricultural production since ancient times. The development of agriculture has gone through three stages: primitive agriculture, traditional agriculture, and modern agriculture. The ideas and practices of mutual assistance and cooperation vary in different stages. The paper summarizes the ancient and modern ideas of food mutual aid and cooperation from four aspects: ecological mutual aid, labor mutual aid, regional mutual aid, and international mutual aid, and summarizes the contemporary value of traditional mutual aid and cooperation ideas. In the new era, in order to ensure food security, it is necessary to build a green ecological foundation for food production, deepen specialization and organizational cooperation innovation, strengthen regional division of labor and cooperation, and practice the global food security concept of win-win cooperation, in order to enhance the ability to ensure food security under the new development pattern through mutual assistance and cooperation.”