Technology empowers and asks for food from facility agriculture

Traditional agriculture, which is highly dependent on natural resources such as land, light and heat, is facing multiple risks such as meteorological disasters.

In the "Six Relationships for the Correct Handling of the Economic Development of Eastern Fujian", Comrade Xi Jinping proposed that it is necessary to jump out of the traditional agricultural circle of natural economy and step onto a new stage of agriculture with comprehensive commodity economy.

To practice the concept of big agriculture and big food, we must not only ask for food from a broader land space, from a wider range of natural resources, but also from modern equipment and innovative technology. In recent years, Fujian has deeply practiced the concept of big food, and has built more than 2.4 million mu of facility agriculture, effectively expanding the agricultural production space and providing strong support for enriching the supply of important agricultural products.

New Equipment –

From watching the sky to eating to knowing the sky

In early summer, more than 70,000 acres of grapes in Fu'an City have ushered in the fruit-bearing period, and fruit farmers are busy thinning fruit management in the greenhouse.

"There is Turpan in the north, and Fujian Fu'an in the south." For fruit lovers, the Jufeng grapes produced in Fu'an are a must-see. But in fact, grapes like sunlight and avoid rain. The southern region, with its high temperature and humidity, was once considered unsuitable for grape growing. Fujianese people have broken down this barrier.

Xianghuan Village, Saiqi Town, is located on the bank of the Saijiang River in the inner bay in the south of Fu'an City, most of the land in the village is saline-alkali land, and there are few crops suitable for cultivation, and the villagers live a tight life. In the 80s of the 20th century, local villagers introduced a number of grape varieties from the north, and through continuous trial and error, they finally settled down here. Taking Xianghuan Village as the origin, grape trellises have sprung up in Fu'an.

At that time, the vineyards depended on the weather, and the hot and rainy climate led to frequent diseases. In order to solve the problem, the science and technology correspondent proposed the rain shelter cultivation technology for the first time.

"Changing open-air planting to greenhouse facility cultivation has effectively reduced the occurrence of pests and diseases, and the frequency of pesticides has been reduced from more than 20 times a year to three or four times." Zhang Fumin, a senior agronomist at the Fu'an Agriculture and Rural Bureau, said that Fu'an grapes not only "have a house to live in", but also live in a "smart suite" - supporting automatic environmental monitoring, intelligent water and fertilizer integration system, living in a stable place, eating and drinking without worry. At the same time, the local government has also implemented technologies such as fruit bagging, fruit thinning and yield control, soil testing and formula fertilization, so that grapes can "have clothes to wear, family planning, and nutritious packages to eat".

It is the development of facility agriculture that allows viticulture to break through the limitations of geography and natural conditions.

Watching the sky and eating is the basic feature of traditional agriculture. The constraints of climate and topography are like nature demarcating a forbidden area for production, which discourages farmers. A sudden cold spring and a sudden cold dew may lead to a reduction in production or even a complete harvest.

To practice the concept of big food, we must not only ask for food from a broader land space and a wider range of mountain and sea resources, but also continuously optimize agricultural production infrastructure, upgrade modern agricultural equipment, use new technologies to break through resource constraints, and use the certainty of science and technology to dissolve the uncertainty of traditional agriculture.

Right now, it's the tillering period of early rice. As the saying goes, a good seedling is half a seedling. However, seedlings are inherently fragile, and early rice seedlings are especially afraid of the cold spring, and the slightest carelessness may rot the seedlings. However, the seedlings that came out of the seedling factory of Fuding Agricultural Grain Center are all "strong and strong". This is because they live in "high-end apartments" and no longer have to look at God's "face".

The so-called "high-end apartment" is actually a three-dimensional circulation seedbed with more than 10 floors. Here, trays of seedlings are neatly stacked on the shelves, and they enjoy VIP treatment: with a constant temperature and humidity system, they are not afraid of the outside wind and rain; With the automatic water and fertilizer management system, you can eat nutritious meals anytime and anywhere; With the plant fill light, it can grow into the sun even in hazy weather; With the automatic circulation transmission system, each seedling can be nourished by water, fertilizer and light in rain and dew.

As we all know, ducks are not happy without water. Traditional duck farming relies on ponds, streams and other water surface free-range breeding. However, open-air farming has great limitations, it is difficult to form a scale effect, and agricultural non-point source pollution is frequent, which is easy to breed poultry diseases and spread in ducks.

Facility agriculture, successfully "catch ducks on the shelves". In Yongtai County Golden Egg Development Co., Ltd., the egg duck after going ashore lived in a "star hotel". In 2022, the first phase of the "Golden Egg Project" invested by the company will be put into operation. 6 smart duck houses have become a new home for 300,000 laying ducks. Here, light, temperature, humidity and wind speed are precisely controlled, and the whole process of water supply, feeding, manure removal and egg collection is automated, and the risk of epidemic infection is significantly reduced. The ducks are no longer nostalgic for the natural waters, and they still lay eggs in a new environment. A duck house only needs to be equipped with one management personnel to handle the eating, drinking and Lazar of 50,000 laying ducks.

Thanks to the development of facility agriculture, the dream of "watching the sky to eat" to "knowing the sky and doing" is gradually shining into reality. At present, Fujian has developed more than 2.4 million acres of facility agriculture, and the advantages of large-scale vegetable production facilities are obvious, and more than 40% of the winter and spring vegetables are supplied to outside the province throughout the year; The industrial production level of edible fungi is 15 percentage points higher than that of the country, and the level of large-scale breeding of pigs, broiler hens, and dairy cows ranks among the top in the country.

New Agricultural Materials——

From relying on experience to being scientifically precise

Milk is one of the important sources of high-quality protein in the diet of residents. In the market, pure milk products are divided into normal temperature and low temperature. The latter is treated by a low-temperature pasteurization process, which can retain the natural active nutrients in milk to the greatest extent, and is gradually becoming a new choice for consumption. However, these active ingredients are sensitive to temperature changes.

From the dairy farm to the table, what is the process of a cup of low-temperature fresh milk?

Hongrui Ecological Agriculture Recycling Park, located in Wangtai Town, Yanping District, Nanping City, is the largest single dairy farm in Fujian, and is also one of the milk source bases of Fujian Changfu Dairy Co., Ltd., a local dairy company, with about 4,000 dairy cows. Every morning at 7 a.m., the cows step up to a giant turntable – an automatic milking machine that can hold 80 cows at a time.

"We use fully enclosed mechanical milking technology." Xiang Jianming, general manager of Hongrui Ecological Agriculture Recycling Park, said that the milk pump is connected to the milk tank through a closed pipe, and with the help of the cold water circulation system, the fresh milk with the body temperature of the cow is quickly cooled to 2 °C ~ 6 °C in the pipeline, and then enters the milk tank with the same temperature conditions for storage. 2°C~6°C is the optimal temperature range for preserving the active ingredients of milk.

Soon, the milk is transported to the processing plant via a cold chain. From milking, storage, multi-link testing, production, transportation to distribution to consumers, the whole process is precisely controlled temperature. This is thanks to the escort of modern intelligent agricultural equipment. Each cold chain logistics vehicle of Changfu Company is equipped with a real-time positioning system, which uploads temperature data in real time, and the slightest temperature change can also be warned and intervened in the first time.

Traditional agriculture relies on experience. Spring planting, summer cultivation, autumn harvest and winter storage, when to irrigate, when to spray, how much feed to feed, how much nutrients to give...... People summarize experience in practice, and obtain output through the application of experience. However, the agricultural production process is complex and changeable, and there are times when traditional experience fails.

In the digital age, data is as indispensable as pesticides, fertilizers, seeds, and agricultural tools. What traditional experience can't tell us, big data can be accurately mastered; The productivity that cannot be achieved by traditional farming methods can be deeply expanded by big data. Practicing the concept of big food requires us to intensively cultivate huge data resources and demand productivity from data.

Thanks to the popularization and application of facility agriculture, agricultural production data resources have been more fully developed and utilized.

Among the six major tea categories, oolong tea is the most complex production process. The traditional high-quality Tieguanyin basically relies on semi-mechanized production, and it is difficult to realize automation in core links such as making green and kneading. Last year, the first "oolong tea intelligent factory" - Fujian Oolong Tea Intelligent Processing Innovation Center landed in Huqiu Town, Anxi County, using big data to solve the pain points of tea making.

"We organically combine traditional craftsmanship with intelligent control, solve the two major 'stuck neck' problems of continuous green making and kneading, and realize the digital automatic control of the whole process of oolong tea production." Li Zhipeng, a researcher at the Institute of Digital Agriculture of the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that this system accurately collects data such as the operation strength, time and frequency of tea makers, and after deep learning, the system can restore the master's process as much as possible, and accurately control the quality of fresh leaves, the degree of green fermentation, smell, moisture content and other indicators.

When big data and artificial intelligence come together, they can do a lot of things that humans can't do well, or even can't do.

Finding a dead chicken in a chicken coop with a stock of 50,000 birds can be as difficult as you can imagine. However, the investigation of dead chickens is an indispensable part of laying hen breeding. If a fish slips through the net, it can induce disease and endanger the health of the entire flock. In Fujian Guangyang Egg Industry Co., Ltd., the egg and poultry breeding robot "Mu Ji Lang" has been baptized by big data, and has developed a pair of "fiery eyes" - it can complete the inspection of a chicken coop in one and a half hours, and accurately locate the dead chickens, with a recognition rate of 99%.

Not only that, but it can also "pull" sick chickens, weak chickens, low-yielding chickens, and extinct chickens. These chickens eat only food and do not lay eggs, and lay few eggs. After timely elimination, it can save a lot of feed costs. According to the current breeding scale of Guangyang, if it is spread evenly, each chicken can save 0.5 kg of feed in the whole cycle. Raising 100,000 chickens can save 200,000 yuan in feed money every year.

New Chips –

From being a snort to being the master of the house

There is a kind of chicken that takes about 40 days from birth to slaughter. It's a white-feathered broiler. Many people have doubts: growing so fast, is it hormone chicken?

In fact, it is completely reassuring. White-feathered broiler is a fast and large breed scientifically selected by breeding experts, and its biggest feature is its high feed conversion efficiency. Under the conditions of intensive factory farming, their growth performance is fully exerted. Compared with our common native chicken, the yellow-feathered broiler, there is no difference in protein and other nutrients between the two. Today, white-feathered broilers have become an important source of animal protein on the national table. Fujian is a large province of white feather broiler breeding, with an annual slaughter of more than 700 million birds.

But for a long time, the mainland white-feathered broiler breeders all relied on imports. In 2021, Fujian Sunner Group Co., Ltd., a local enterprise, has been sharpening its sword for ten years, and the white-feathered broiler supporting line "Shengze 901" independently selected and bred has passed the approval, and its comprehensive performance has reached the international advanced level.

As a result, the white-feathered broiler industry has gradually entered the era of "domestic core" being the master. At present, "Shengze 901" has been popularized and applied in dozens of white-feathered broiler breeding enterprises across the country. By the end of 2023, "Shengze 901" has promoted more than 25 million sets of parent breeders, with a domestic market share of 20%.

While the market share is increasing, "Shengze 901" is also constantly iteratively upgraded. "Breeding research is seen as a 'special zone' for the company's business - money for money, people for people, and policies for policies." Xiao Fan, assistant to the chairman and chief breeding expert of Sunner Development Co., Ltd., said that Sunner invests more than 100 million yuan in breeding research and development every year to continuously optimize the comprehensive performance of "Shengze 901". Last year, the "Shengze 901" was optimized and upgraded, and the feed-to-meat ratio of commercial broilers (the amount of feed consumed by raising livestock and poultry to gain 1 kg of weight) was reduced by 0.05. According to the current breeding scale of Sunner, it is expected to save 400 million yuan in feed costs for enterprises every year.

Facility agriculture provides hard equipment for agricultural production. But it is not enough to have good equipment, but also to match high-quality "chips" - good varieties.

"We continue to promote the innovation of facility agriculture seed industry, and strengthen the joint breeding of high-quality special varieties of facility agriculture." The relevant person in charge of the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said that in recent years, Fujian's self-selected and bred industrial cultivated varieties such as enoki mushroom, shimeji mushroom, and king oyster mushroom have broken through foreign monopolies, and new varieties such as bisporus mushroom and hydrangea mushroom account for more than 80 percent of the country's planting area. At present, the coverage rate of crops, livestock and poultry varieties in the province exceeds 98%, ranking among the top in the country.

From relying on people's snorts to being the master of the house, "domestic core" is becoming the driving force of big food.

If you want to talk about the "nail household" in the hot pot, barbecue, and spicy hot menus, the white and tender enoki mushroom is definitely one. But in fact, wild enoki mushrooms are mostly yellow. The mainland was the first country to domesticate and artificially cultivate enoki mushrooms, and most of the yellow varieties were cultivated by agricultural methods in the early years. Thanks to the development of facility agriculture, it is possible to cultivate enoki mushrooms on an annual basis. The Japanese white enoki mushroom variety "T022" has high and stable yield, extensive management, and good commercial characteristics, especially suitable for industrial annual cultivation, and once monopolized the domestic enoki mushroom market.

In order to change this situation, the Provincial Seed Industry Innovation and Industrialization Project organized and carried out research on enoki mushroom breeding. Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University and Fujian Wanchen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. jointly selected and bred the "Nongwanjin" series of white enoki mushroom varieties, which have reached the advanced level abroad and achieved import substitution.

Bisporus mushrooms are a frequent guest on the common people's table. However, in the past, most of the varieties required for factory cultivation of Bisporus mushrooms were imported from foreign countries. In recent years, the expert team of the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences has independently selected and bred a new variety "Fu Mushroom 78", which not only has high yield, good mushroom level, strong disease resistance and adaptability, but also is suitable for the current domestic mainstream Bisporus mushroom factory cultivation management mode. At present, this variety has been applied in many enterprises, realizing partial domestic substitution, and is expected to become a new main cultivar.

Source: Fujian Daily