STORY: Intelligent technologies propel China's rural agriculture development
SHOOTING TIME: Recent footage
DATELINE: July 8, 2024
LENGTH: 00:03:12
LOCATION: HUZHOU/NANJING/HEBI, China
CATEGORY: AGRICULTURE

SHOTLIST:
1. various of a chicken farm in Shishan Village, Huzhou, Zhejiang
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): LIU WENCHAO, Founder of an ecological agriculture company
3. various of a demonstration greenhouse of the Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province
4. SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): REN NI, Head of the Agricultural Information Institute, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences
5. various of the 5G digital agriculture demonstration park in Qixian County, Hebi City
6. SOUNDBITE 3 (Chinese): GAO KUN, Technician at the 5G digital agriculture demonstration park in Qixian County, Hebi City
7. SOUNDBITE 4 (Chinese): PENG MIN, Manager at the 5G digital agriculture demonstration park in Qixian County, Hebi City

STORYLINE:

Liu Wenchao, a computer science major graduate, went back to his hometown and established a digital chicken farm in Huzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province.

Leveraging on his expertise, Liu's farm integrates intelligent monitoring devices with fully automated systems.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): LIU WENCHAO, Founder of an ecological agriculture company
"We now employ stereoscopic chicken coops with four rows and five levels inside each one, which can accommodate around 50,000 laying hens at each coop. The coops are equipped with integrated systems for automatic egg collection, auto manure removal and lighting adjustment, basically achieving unmanned farming.
We have also introduced farming robots that can replace manual inspections. They are more precise and efficient, and equipped with sensors to measure temperature, humidity, ammonia, carbon dioxide, light, and wind speed, and can check around the coops. Currently, our nine coops can produce approximately 300,000 eggs per day."

China's farming sector has embraced new technologies in recent years, as the country emphasizes the importance of sci-tech development in ensuring food security and driving rural revitalization.

At a greenhouse at the Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences in east China's Nanjing City, more than 10 varieties of tomatoes are thriving under the management of an artificial intelligence (AI) system, that can precisely control water, temperature, and fertilizer.

SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): REN NI, Head of the Agricultural Information Institute, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences
"This is why AI is useful. It calculates instead of making decisions based on experience. Decisions like when to fertilize and when to open windows are now made on AI algorithms."

Official data showed that the contribution rate of China's agricultural science and technology progress reached 62.4 percent in 2022. Aided by increased contributions from agricultural machinery and technology, China secured a grain harvest of over 650 million tonnes for the ninth consecutive year in 2023.

Central China's Henan Province is one of the country's grain production bases.

Here, digital mechanization is empowering grain planting.

Thanks to 10 large-scale irrigation machines, 3,200 mu (213 hectares) of farmland in Hebi City can now be fully irrigated in just a week. The entire process can be monitored on a large screen, displaying every detail of the field for efficient management.

SOUNDBITE 3 (Chinese): GAO KUN, Technician at the 5G digital agriculture demonstration park in Qixian County, Hebi City
"Today, two or three people can manage 10 large-scale irrigation machines. The watering is quite steady. We can specifically target each plot for irrigation. The most important feature is water conservation. According to our previous data, this system can save around 30 to 40 percent of water."

SOUNDBITE 4 (Chinese): PENG MIN, Manager at the 5G digital agriculture demonstration park in Qixian County, Hebi City
"In our fields, we have 36 sets of soil moisture testing instruments, four sets of environmental testing instruments, along with weather stations. Additionally, we also adopt devices for pest and disease testing. These devices can send real-time data to our platform. Agricultural experts can then collect and analyze this data to further guide our next steps in agricultural production."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Huzhou, Nanjing, and Hebi in China.
(XHTV)