China's agricultural fields grow seeds of sci-tech progress

BEIJING -- In the Taigu District of the city of Jinzhong, north China's Shanxi Province, tall and bright vegetable greenhouses standing next to each other have hosted busy workers before the Spring Festival this year.

With a total area of 330,000 mu (about 22,000 hectares) for grain planting, a 60,000 mu facility for vegetable growing, and an annual output of 300,000 tonnes of livestock products, Taigu has become known for agriculture.

"Our current efforts are aimed at increasing the production of pumpkins," said Shi Jingnan, manager of Taigu Defeng Seed Co., Ltd. The company has found an all-female strain, which is expected to be used in developing hybrid pumpkin seeds to deliver a major yield breakthrough.

TECHNOLOGY UPGRADES EVIDENT IN FIELDS

In Hancun Village of Taigu, villagers participated in agricultural technology development by applying research outcomes in the fields and sending feedback to researchers.

The upgrading of seed technology is inseparable from large-scale planting, according to Shi. "Farmers have true ideas of the advantages and disadvantages of an agricultural product."

"They hoped to diversify the ripening season of pumpkins, and so we developed early and extremely early varieties," Shi said. "We also maintain the size and weight of the products within a stable range."

From single varieties to hybrids, the company combined traditional breeding methods and high-tech solutions to cultivate a group of high-quality pumpkin and zucchini seeds, which were introduced to overseas markets.

In a biological breeding research center in Taigu, a seed selection center, experimental production base, promotion and trading platform, and germplasm resource storage facility have combined to greatly improve the innovation ability of the seed industry.

China unveiled its "No. 1 central document" for 2024 earlier this month, outlining the priorities for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization this year.

The document called for consolidating support for agricultural science and technology and intensifying research concerning the core technologies of germplasm resources.

The development of seeds is a vivid illustration of the significant agricultural advances made in Taigu. This district has cultivated 44,460 mu of high-standard farmland, which accounts for more than 66 percent of total farmland in the district, and has developed a 24,400 mu efficient water-saving irrigation area, thanks to facilities and equipment upgrading initiatives based on science and technology.

All this work is to make pumpkins more marketable and increase the income of farmers. The net profit of each vegetable planting greenhouse reached 100,000 yuan (about 13,900 U.S. dollars) in 2023, said Cheng Xiaowu, head of a village committee in Taigu. Some village households in this district have crops growing in as many as five greenhouses.

INDUSTRY ADVANCE VIA TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

The introduction of modern science and technology has made traditional agriculture more efficient and effectively improved agricultural production methods.

Mountain monorail transport trucks, loaded with fertilizer and farm tools, climbed steadily along a track to the terraces of olive trees in Wudu District of the city of Longnan, northwest China's Gansu Province.

A single journey by one such truck carries a load of up to 200 kilograms, said Zhao Haiyun, an official with the district. It takes only 11 minutes to climb 500 meters, which means this innovation has effectively eased transportation challenges in terms of both production materials and agricultural products in mountainous areas with steep or extensive slopes.

Longnan has completed a total of 66.7 kilometers of mountain monorail transport tracks consisting of 106 lines.

With only seven percent of the world's arable land, China feeds about 20 percent of the global population and has made remarkable progress in agricultural development, said Yu Ningkai, director of the rural development institute under the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences

Over thousands of years of Chinese agricultural development, each upgrade in farm tool technology has resulted in progress in human agricultural civilization, Yu added.

A biological pesticide made of materials based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, combined with modern biopharmaceutical methods, is being promoted in more than 10 provinces nationwide, including Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Fujian. It has been widely used for the cultivation of vegetables and Chinese medicinal herbs, covering a planting area of nearly 3.6 million mu.

Biopesticides are natural, said Shen Tong, a professor with Lanzhou Jiaotong University in Gansu. They can effectively control crop diseases and pests as well as ensure food safety and protect the agricultural environment.

China is witnessing continuous research and development in terms of new agricultural technologies, which are beefing up industrial modernization upgrading in the country.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the contribution rate of agricultural scientific and technological progress exceeded 62 percent in 2022, with the overall mechanization rate of crop cultivation and harvesting reaching 73 percent.