People's Daily: Smart agriculture has broad prospects

A strong agricultural country is the foundation of a strong modern socialist country.  Smart agriculture is an agricultural form formed by the deep integration of modern information technology and agricultural production and management. The development of smart agriculture is of great significance for promoting agricultural modernization. The Outline of the Digital Village Development Strategy released in 2019 proposed to build smart agriculture; The outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan proposes to "accelerate the development of smart agriculture and promote the digital transformation of agricultural production, operation and management services"; In 2023, the No. 1 Central document proposed to "accelerate the application of big data in agriculture and rural areas and promote the development of smart agriculture"; In 2024, the Central Document No. 1 proposed to "continue to implement digital rural development actions and develop smart agriculture". At present, the development of smart agriculture in China has entered the fast lane and shown broad prospects.

Developing smart agriculture is of great significance

At present, the new round of agricultural scientific and technological revolution characterized by biotechnology and information technology is giving birth to major breakthroughs, and countries are seizing the commanding heights. Smart agriculture applies information technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, spatial information, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, combined with modern biotechnology and planting and breeding technology, through the online, digital and networking of agricultural production factors such as agricultural resources, environment, facilities and equipment. Achieve comprehensive perception, quantitative decision-making, intelligent control, precise input and professional services for agricultural production and operation management, and promote agricultural production to be more convenient and management to be more efficient.

When the Party's 20th National Congress drew up the grand blueprint for comprehensively building a modern socialist country, it made overall plans for agriculture and rural work, and proposed to "comprehensively promote rural revitalization" and basically realize agricultural modernization by 2035. At present, compared with the new industrialization, information technology and urbanization, China's agricultural modernization lags behind significantly, and agriculture and rural areas are still the short board of China's modernization construction. Smart agriculture is the direction of agricultural development and an important symbol of agricultural modernization. Today's agricultural powers in the world are moving from the development stage of mechanized agriculture dominated by agricultural machinery operations to the development stage of smart agriculture dominated by digital, networked and intelligent equipment operations. Some countries have saved a large amount of agricultural production resources and solved the problems of insufficient human resources and shortage of natural resources by applying smart fields, smart greenhouses and smart farming technologies. Vigorously developing smart agriculture and introducing advanced technology, modern equipment and management concepts into agriculture will help comprehensively improve China's agricultural labor productivity, resource utilization rate and land output rate, promote the comprehensive upgrading of agriculture, all-round rural progress and all-round development of farmers, thus promoting the development of agricultural modernization and accelerating the construction of an agricultural power. Strengthen the foundation for building a great modern socialist country in all respects.

Highlights and features of smart agriculture

The goal and task of developing smart agriculture are comprehensive and multi-level, involving all aspects of agricultural pre-production, production and post-production, including the wisdom of agricultural facilities, equipment, machinery and other "things", but also includes the wisdom of agricultural operation, management, service and other "people" aspects, but also includes the wisdom of agricultural governance, etc., the content is very rich. It has the characteristics of resource saving, high output efficiency, environment friendly and product safety.

Increase productivity with real-time, accurate monitoring. As a modern agricultural production mode, smart agriculture can greatly improve agricultural production efficiency. For example, through comprehensive sensing technologies such as sensors, radar, sonar, and transmission technologies such as 5G, narrowband Internet of Things, and long-distance radio, the growing environment of agricultural plants and animals, the growth state of breeding objects, and the working conditions of operating equipment can be sensed in real time to achieve real-time monitoring of agricultural production. Through big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies, the optimal growth state of agricultural plants and animals can be calculated to achieve accurate control of agricultural production. Let's wait. Studies have shown that compared with ordinary greenhouses, smart greenhouses can save 14% water, save 31% fertilizer and nutrients, and further shorten the growth cycle of crops, and increase production by 10% to 20%.

Improve product quality by optimizing the control model. Smart agriculture can not only improve agricultural production efficiency, but also improve the quality of agricultural products by optimizing the allocation of agricultural resources and improving the level of agricultural management. For example, by optimizing the growth control model of agricultural plants and animals and adjusting the growth environment, growth state and working condition to the optimal state, the best utilization of land, water, light and heat resources and the precise input of production materials such as seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, energy and power can be realized, and the quality of flowers, fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs and milk can be improved to achieve high-quality agricultural development. Through the combination of machine vision, plant and animal phenotype technology, gene big data analysis, gene editing, molecular breeding and other technologies, intelligent breeding can be realized, and the best seed source of agricultural animals and plants can be obtained, laying the foundation for efficient and high-quality agricultural income. Let's wait. In practice, some scientific research institutions rely on the Internet of Things perception technology to accurately obtain various data such as light, temperature, water and fertilizer in the tomato growing environment, and adjust various parameter values to obtain healthy and delicious fruits.

Through standardized production to strengthen resource conservation, to ensure the "safety on the tip of the tongue". Relying on information technology to strengthen precision measurement and control, smart agriculture can meet the needs of crop growth and avoid excessive input of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, feed and other inputs, which can not only effectively reduce resource waste and non-point source pollution of farmland environment, but also help ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products and achieve green development of agriculture. The use of information technology to real-time dynamic monitoring of soil, atmospheric environment and water environment, so that each link of production is more in line with environmental standards, and is conducive to ensuring that the final agricultural products meet the corresponding quality standards. With the help of two-dimensional code, radio frequency tag, blockchain and other technologies, it is also possible to establish a fully traceable, interconnected and shared agricultural product quality and food safety information platform, improve the supervision system of agricultural product quality and safety process from farmland to table, and ensure the "safety on the tip of the tongue" of the people.

In general, smart agriculture is a comprehensive system integration and integration innovation of information technology, biotechnology, equipment technology, planting and breeding technology and materials, with advanced productivity characteristics. The development of smart agriculture can effectively solve the problems of extensive management, weak competitiveness, low resource utilization rate and low income of farmers in traditional agriculture, achieve accurate management of planting and breeding objects, intelligent decision-making and unmanned operations in the production process, greatly reduce the restrictions of natural conditions on agricultural planting and breeding activities, and thus expand agricultural production space. There are broad prospects for improving labor productivity, land output and resource utilization. For example, at present, a 2000 mu scale farm, smart agriculture hardware equipment investment is about 350,000 yuan, the service cost is about 30 yuan per mu per year, by saving labor costs, improve production, can increase the benefit of 160 yuan per mu per year, 2-3 years can return the cost. The comprehensive and in-depth integration of new technologies with planting, seed industry, animal husbandry, fishery, processing and manufacturing of agricultural and sideline products, and marketing of agricultural products will also give birth to new agricultural industries, new models, and new driving forces, which will increase the value of agricultural products and increase farmers' incomes.

We will accelerate the development of smart agriculture

Since the new era, China has vigorously promoted the development of rural informatization, promoted the penetration and integration of modern information technology into all fields of agriculture and rural areas, significantly improved rural informatization infrastructure, and achieved positive results in the construction of smart agriculture. Important progress has been made in the research and development and application of intelligent agricultural machinery and equipment, breakthroughs have been made in the construction of smart field farms, digitalization of livestock and poultry farming has been promoted in tandem with scale and standardization, a variety of fishery farming models supported by digital technology have been put into production, and a national agricultural product quality and safety traceability management information platform has been established. By 2023, the informatization rate of agricultural production in China will reach 27.6 percent. At the same time, we should also see that the development of rural informatization in China is still in its infancy, and the development of smart agriculture still faces some challenges. For example, some remote agricultural production areas have not yet achieved network coverage, the lack of advanced and applicable information products and equipment, the effective data to support production, operation and management decisions are not rich enough, and the interdisciplinary talent team that understands both "agriculture, rural areas" and information technology needs to be further expanded. We must adhere to the systematic concept, adhere to the real economy as the foundation, with scientific and technological innovation as the core, and industrial upgrading as the direction, and strive to promote the improvement of workers, labor materials, labor objects and their optimized combinations.

We will move faster to break technological bottlenecks. In contrast to the gap between China and the international advanced level in key areas such as key technologies, core components and complete sets of equipment in smart agriculture, we should strengthen basic research and break through the problem of "stuck neck". Vigorously promote the research and development of key common technologies such as agricultural sensor technology and agricultural special chips, carry out organized scientific research on the growth and development regulation models of agricultural animals and plants, and encourage the deep integration of industry, university and research to improve the process.

Create a smart agricultural industry ecosystem. With enterprises as the main body and the market as the guide, we will accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological innovation achievements. Encourage the development and growth of agricultural smart sensors and special chips, agricultural special robots and other related industries, and actively build a smart agricultural industry ecosystem including intelligent equipment manufacturing, cloud computing, cloud services, chip industry, etc., to provide strong industrial support for the development of smart agriculture.

We will strengthen the construction of talented personnel. We will promote the development of new agricultural and engineering disciplines, guide colleges and universities to rationally set up agricultural intelligent equipment engineering, smart agriculture and other related majors, and encourage colleges and universities related to agriculture to upgrade traditional agricultural majors by using biotechnology, information technology, and engineering technology. Encourage all localities to rely on resources such as universities and leading agricultural enterprises in the region to train practical rural information technology talents, and provide strong talent support for the development of smart agriculture.

Explore development paths in light of local conditions. In view of China's wide agricultural region, large differences in climate and natural resource conditions, and many agricultural categories, we insist on proceeding from reality and exploring application scenarios and overall plans for the development of smart agriculture according to local conditions. For example, we can encourage and guide enterprises with large production scale, high mechanization and digitalization level, high planting and breeding efficiency, financial strength and operational capacity to accelerate the development of smart agriculture, and we can also build a number of high-level smart farms, smart ranches, and smart fisheries in different industries and regions, create smart agriculture innovation application bases, and form a number of typical cases that can be replicated and promoted. We will promote the development of smart agriculture through demonstration and radiation.

We will strengthen rural reform and innovation. The development of smart agriculture needs to form corresponding production relations, and rural reform and innovation must be strengthened. We will guide the orderly transfer of contracted land management rights, actively foster new agricultural business entities such as family farms and farmers' cooperatives, encourage leading enterprises to apply blockchain and other technologies, and strengthen the construction of a product traceability system. At the same time, on the premise of adhering to the bottom line, encourage local practices and institutional innovation, strengthen the integration of reform measures to improve the efficiency of agricultural land output, labor productivity and resource utilization, and significantly improve the efficiency of agricultural resource allocation and total factor productivity.

At the same time, we must deeply understand that the development of smart agriculture must be based on China's national conditions, based on the resource endowment of more people and less land, the historical heritage of farming civilization, and the requirements of The Times of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and go our own way, not simply copy the development model of modern agriculture abroad. On the basis of family management, we should adhere to the combination of unified and decentralized management, and extensively carry out social services for small farmers, so as to form an appropriate scale of agricultural management with Chinese characteristics.