Smart solutions breathe new life into agriculture

Modern technologies are breathing new life into traditional labor-intensive businesses like farm planting, with automation and real-time monitoring helping farmers to boost productivity and cut costs.

Unlike the past, smart agriculture fueled with AI technology brings more benefits as real-time data will offer in-time solutions for threats from pests and bad weather conditions.

Ma Chunfeng, a farm owner from Changji, an autonomous prefecture that is renowned for farm products in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region swears by smart agriculture.

"Take fertilizers for an example. It took me two months to fertilize my 80 hectares of farmland with help from four employees. But now all I have to do is press a button," Ma said, adding that automative fertilizing offers a less costly way of planting.

Ma said that the automative operator he uses offers a formula of water-soluble fertilizers that help reduce pollution and lower the risk of burning a plant with chemical fertilizers. "Besides, the operator I use sends feedback on growth condition of the crops so that we can adjust our planting methods.

"With consumer demand surging for organic food and healthier lifestyles, the quality of crops now matters more than productivity" Ma said.

Ma is not the only one who has benefited from smart agriculture. About 380,000 rural households have benefited from a weather monitoring project that has helped build sustainable growth and got $313.14 million funds from the World Bank and the Government of China.

China is also encouraging agriculture technology cooperation with Arab countries, including United Arab Emirates, said a recent Xinhua report. According to a report by website Sootoo, smart agricultural applications now mainly cover automative driving, data services and unmanned aerial vehicle use. Analysts from Sootoo said that training farmers will be a key issue, as emerging techniques like unmanned aerial vehicles require more sophisticated operating skills.

Many smart agriculture service providers are also offering training to farmers who use their products.

Changji-based Xinjiang Huier Agriculture Group Co Ltd is now sending staff to teach farmers on how to use their equipment, and read data that reflects dryness of the soil and growth of the crops.

"More farmers are getting used to phones and technologies, which gives the products an edge," said Li Baoqiang, head of Xinjiang Huier.

"We also have a database for monitoring the growth of crops in different phases from the last ten years, which provides comprehensive suggestions to farmers for different crop situations," said Li.

Li said the company has invested about 10 million yuan ($1.45 million) on research and development every year during the last five years.

"I am glad we made it after rounds of testings and failures as the company suffered in the initial years as we lacked technical support or practical experience."

"It is all worth the effort, as tech adaptation in farming is an inevitable trend," said Li.

According to Li, the company has till date provided 200 equipments to farm owners, and their products are now used over 7,000 hectares of farmland. It plans to set up 40,000 fertilizer facilities to cover about 1.3 million hectares, and six factories to manufacture the facilities in the next five years.