He was a member of the 7th and 8th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
[1] Zhang was born in Linyi County, Shanxi, on 4 March 1925.
His father was a Jinshi during the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) in Imperial China.
After graduating from Hokkaido University in the Empire of Japan in 1945, he attended Kyoto University where he obtained his bachelor's degree in agronomy in Allied-occupied Japan in 1948 and doctor's degree in animal nutrition in 1952.
In January 1980, he took office as director of the Institute of Animal Husbandry, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a position he held until January 2010.