"The Martian" tells the story of a botanist who was "abandoned" on Mars by his companions to grow potatoes on the base in order to maintain life.
The scene of the hero chewing chips impressed the audience in front of the screen. Back to Earth, how to grow lettuce in a container without soil and sunlight? The third "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition" gave us the answer.
Three agricultural research and technology competitions to achieve "breaking the circle" in interdisciplinary fields
On June 27th, the results of the Guangming Duoduo Vertical Farming Challenge and the 3rd "Duoduo Agricultural Research and Technology Competition" were announced. After passing the preliminary round, final round, expert review and other layers of screening, the team of Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences won the first prize and the "highest yield award" of the third "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition", the CyberFarmer team won the second prize and the "Best Energy Saving Award", and the "Endless Life" team and Lettus Grow team of Shanghai Jiaotong University won the third prize.
As the organizer, Pinduoduo, since 2020, has held the "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition" for three consecutive years.
The third edition of the Agricultural Challenge attracted 30 top teams and more than 150 young scientists from around the world to sign up. After the preliminary screening, 15 teams entered the preliminary round. After the competition, the four teams competed in the final competition. The competition also invited 15 public judges to taste and score the "Cuitian" planted by the four teams, and the relevant departments also conducted a quick inspection of the products.
The final was extremely challenging. The teams competed against the contestants on how to grow better quality and higher yielding fruit lettuce - Cuitian with lower energy consumption in three months in containers without sunlight and soil. This breed is something that all contestants have never touched on. Therefore, this is also a comprehensive competition covering optics, information technology, agricultural planting and other disciplines.
This year's competition attracted many experts in the industry, and it was also a challenge with a very high "Bo rate". Among the contestants, 39 were doctors, accounting for nearly 42%; Among the finalists, the "inclusion rate" was as high as 58.3%. For the participating teams, with the help of the platform built by Pinduoduo and Guangming, they can increase their communication with the industry by participating in the agricultural research and technology competition, which is a very rare opportunity.
In the first two sessions, Pinduoduo gathered scientists, engineers and farmers to use AI, synthetic biology and other technologies to explore tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, etc. with low energy consumption, high cycle planting products and good quality in the experimental field. The three consecutive competitions reflect that smart agriculture is a multidisciplinary application scenario that integrates industry and agriculture, tests the basic research of each team using a variety of technologies, and explores and solves the pain points and difficulties of three-dimensional planting technology.
After three sessions, the Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition has gradually "broken the circle" from the agricultural field and attracted the participation of many young experts with interdisciplinary backgrounds.
The team of the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which won the first prize of the competition, was led by Dr. He Lizhong, who has rich theoretical and practical experience in facility cultivation and smart agriculture. He has provided training on how to grow vegetables in extreme environments for members of the continental Antarctic research expedition.
Yang Hao, who transferred to agriculture with an engineering background, studied at China Agricultural University, and he has participated in three Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competitions as a doctoral student. In 2020, Yang Hao was studying for a PhD and was doing strawberry breeding research with his senior brother Zheng Jianfeng. In the first Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition, they signed up because they felt that the topics matched, and won the championship after several months of hard work.
Now Yang Hao has grown from a junior brother to the eldest brother of the participating team, and he led the youngest CyberFarmer team with an average age of only 25 years old, and won the second prize and the "Best Energy Saving Award". Limited by the container environment, the CyberFarmer team simulated natural light and heat, temperature, day and night differences as much as possible, and regulated the environment according to the physiological needs of the plants themselves. In the end, CyberFarmer grew lettuce with the highest percentage of edible and more commercial forms.
Yang Hao
Xiong Yuanke from Shanghai Jiao Tong University is a member of the Shengsheng team.
At the age of 24, he participated for the first time, and the team won the third prize. The team consisted of six people, five of whom had engineering backgrounds and only one who was a plantation specialist. In terms of the division of labor, five programmers are responsible for running models, producing data, and then giving data to the planting boss. Regarding the result, Xiong Yuanke seriously reflected on the part that his team needs to improve, saying: "In the later stage, because of the pursuit of production, we ignored the sweetness, and we will definitely fill this part in the next competition." ”
Bear Yuanke
The Lettus Grow team is the only corporate team of the four participating teams.
Captain Xu Dan graduated from Wageningen University, and he participated in the Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition for the second time, achieving the first place in the tomato competition. In this competition, his team won the third prize. Xu Dan admits that Cuitian lettuce is Polestar's first contact with the variety, which is very challenging for the team. However, the Lettus Grow team is mainly unmanned, and everything is solved online. The whole process has been uncertain, which is a very valuable asset for Xu Dan and his team.
Xu Dan
It is true that the third competition explores the future direction of agricultural development. That is, in a special environment, how to grow crops more and better. The four finalist teams all had their own deep understanding of the issue and practiced their own plans through the three-month finals process.
However, the container has no sunlight, limited space, ventilation, the density of the grid cannot be adjusted, the carbon dioxide bottle leaks, etc., and each team has encountered more or less irresistible challenges. These episodes are part of the exploration, which has important reference significance for the entire agricultural construction, and in the end, like the plans of the four teams, the exploration of the future of agriculture is realized.
Wang Jian, senior vice president of Pinduoduo, said bluntly: "We also have many successful cases of turning scientific research products from samples into products and then into explosive products, and turning the results of hard research by agricultural researchers into agricultural and sideline products that consumers across the country like to see; Through our technical advantages, these excellent agricultural scientific research products are more displayed in front of consumers and obtain better sales, so as to feed back scientific research and improve the enthusiasm of researchers. "This is the most direct embodiment of science and technology to help farmers, thanks to Pinduoduo's attention and investment in science and technology to help farmers over the years."
Pinduoduo is committed to helping modernize digital agriculture
Over the years, Pinduoduo has been actively participating in front-end agricultural science and technology innovation to promote the upward movement of agricultural products.
In the agricultural industry chain, Pinduoduo's advantages not only include sales, but also focus on agricultural technology. "Tens of billions of subsidies" are not only used for e-commerce, but also for helping farmers. In August 2021, Pinduoduo set up the "10 billion agricultural research project" to promote the inclusiveness of agricultural science and technology; Continue the "zero commission" policy for agricultural products to help farmers create a more resilient, efficient and profitable business environment, and drive farmers to increase production and income. In 2022, Pinduoduo's total R&D expenditure exceeded RMB 10 billion for the first time, with agricultural input being the most important.
For example, the total prize pool of the second "Duoduo Agricultural Research and Technology Competition" exceeded 1 million RMB, all of which was used to support the winning teams. The Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition is an important carrier provided by Pinduoduo for the landing of agricultural scientific and technological achievements.
For example, through the "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition", greenhouse planting, soilless cultivation, AI planting and other projects have been hatched, which are widely used in Anhui, Yunnan and Liaoning. Through the AI system, it helped strawberry farmers in Dandongdonggang, Liaoning Province, to achieve a leapfrog upgrade of the industry from two people in a greenhouse to seven sheds managed by one person. And by focusing on digital agriculture, in addition to allowing farmers to grow well, they can also sell well. For example, through the help of the platform, some fruit merchants have seen a surge in sales.
For example, last year, the "Tobacco Potato No. 25" developed by the Yantai Academy of Agricultural Sciences sold more than 50,000 orders a day on the platform; Fenyang yellow millet processed by "Jingu No. 21" sold more than 100,000 orders on Double 11. These examples have proved that Pinduoduo has effectively driven the sales of local products and increased farmers' income through high investment in connecting with the domestic market, and accelerating the transformation of agricultural scientific research achievements from samples to products to explosive products.
This year, regarding agricultural assistance, Pinduoduo accelerated its transformation to "high-quality development". In February, Pinduoduo launched the "Agricultural Cloud Action" to promote 100 agricultural belts across the country to "put them on the cloud" faster and create a more resilient and competitive digital agricultural belt. The special team of Pinduoduo's "Nongyun Action" has successively visited Shouguang in Weifang, Qingdao, Laixi, Kunming, Songming, Jinning and other places in Yunnan, providing local fruits, vegetables, flowers, green plants and other merchants with special e-commerce operation training and one-on-one directional operation guidance. It also provides traffic, resources, and operational strategies, and supply chain support for new merchants.
In May, Pinduoduo established the "Pinduoduo-China Agricultural University Research Fund" and donated 100 million RMB to China Agricultural University. The fund is used to support China Agricultural University to explore basic research and core agricultural technology research around the major strategic needs of the country. Persistent hard investment can effectively help agricultural scientific and technological achievements land, and also attract more young people to return to their hometowns to help farmers.
Data shows that Pinduoduo currently links more than 16 million (2021 data) farmers. According to the "2021 New New Farmers Growth Report" released by Pinduoduo, as of October 2021, the number of post-95s on the platform has exceeded 126,000. Among them, there are many famous school students and overseas students, and 95% of the talents come from the second generation of farmers, the second generation of fruits, and the second generation of batches.
To sum up, Pinduoduo helps agricultural researchers build a platform for the landing of scientific and technological achievements through scientific research investment, improve agricultural production efficiency and quality, and optimize the agricultural industry chain. With the help of platform traffic advantages, we will continue to promote the development of supply chain and agricultural product brands, and ultimately improve the added value and market competitiveness of agricultural products. In the long run, this is a virtuous cycle of sustainable development.
Write at the end
Pinduoduo continues to hold the Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition, which is of great significance to promoting the high-quality development of agriculture. In recent years, through the potential energy of the platform, Pinduoduo has cooperated with major agricultural colleges and universities to provide customized courses for young agricultural talents around the world, as well as landable training combining production, education and research. In the aftermath of the just-concluded Third Agricultural Research and Technology Competition, the second "Pinduoduo Cup" Science and Technology Small Institute Competition set off a new round of competition. As the initiator of the competition, Pinduoduo takes agriculture as its core development strategy, has long been committed to using new technologies and models, and also developing agriculture in the direction of digitalization. On the one hand, it attracts many professionals to use agricultural skills, on the other hand, it helps farmers to produce and earn, and at the same time provides possibilities for agricultural research development. The progress of a race has also promoted the pace of agricultural modernization and progress step by step.
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