This enterprise in Pudong New Area has won the first prize of Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award, promoting the pilot equipment of facility agriculture | Key Technologies | Pudong New Area

In accordance with the construction task of the rural revitalization leading area, Pudong New Area continues to promote the construction of high standard facility vegetable fields, continuously improving the mechanization and intelligence level of vegetable production throughout the process, and continuously achieving new breakthroughs in key technologies. At the 2022 Shanghai Science and Technology Awards Conference held on May 26 this year, the industry university research cooperation project "Key Technology and Complete Equipment for Intelligent Equipment Production of Facility Vegetables" led by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and participated by Shanghai Guoxing Agricultural Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. and applied in the Qingmei Base won the first prize for scientific and technological progress. This is a breakthrough achievement made by Shanghai in the field of facility agriculture.

At 7 o'clock in the morning, at the "High Standard Facility Vegetable Production Base" in Qiaobei Village, Huinan Town, Pudong New Area, Qingmei technicians are using an intelligent control platform to check the growth of nearly 100 acres of chicken hair vegetables growing on seedbeds at the base. In a week, the chicken hair vegetables here will be delivered to the dining tables of citizens. The fully automatic logistics seedbed planting used in Qiaobei Base can achieve fast sowing and planting, and chicken hair vegetable can be produced in up to 18 days. From sowing one seed to logistics seedbed for turnover, it is equipped with a modeled water and fertilizer system and environmental control system, achieving automatic transportation of chicken hair vegetable to the harvesting area for harvesting on the 18th day. Guo Zhibing, the chairman of Guoxing Agriculture, who won the first prize in Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award, proudly said that after ten years of sharpening the sword, "farms have become agricultural factories". Here, machinery has replaced manual labor, and the transformation of automation and intelligence has been achieved. Compared with traditional planting, labor can be reduced by 95%.

This is the charm of facility agriculture! This year, the No. 1 central document of the Central Committee clearly proposed that modern facility agriculture should be developed. From last year's "Accelerating the Development of Facility Agriculture" to this year's "Developing Modern Facility Agriculture and Implementing the Action of Modernizing Facility Agriculture", more detailed guidance has been put forward, and for the first time, the "Vegetable Intensive Seedling Center" and "Concentrated and contiguous promotion of the renovation and upgrading of old vegetable facilities" have been included in the documents.

What is facility agriculture? Facility agriculture, also known as "controllable environmental agriculture" or "greenhouse agriculture", precisely controls variables such as light, water, gas, and fertilizer in greenhouses and greenhouses, gradually breaking away from the traditional problem of "watching the sky and eating" in agriculture. In this mode, it is suitable for off-season and annual continuous production, with characteristics such as high input, high output, and high efficiency.

The relevant person in charge of the Agriculture Commission of Pudong New Area stated that Shanghai has a concentrated urban population, high consumption of vegetables and fruits, and increasingly scarce land resources. Modern facility agriculture is the future development direction, which is related to the stability of Shanghai's "vegetable basket". In recent years, although China's facility agriculture has made significant progress in terms of promotion area and technological progress, there is still a significant gap compared to developed countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States, especially in terms of independent control and integrated innovation of key equipment. The reason why "Key Technologies and Complete Equipment for Intelligent Equipment Production of Facility Vegetables" won the first prize this time is that it solved the problem of core intelligent equipment and control technology in facility agriculture.

This breakthrough is not overnight, but the result of collaborative innovation among the government, enterprises, and universities. As early as 2019, with the strong support and cultivation of the Pudong Agricultural Commission, Guoxingnong began to create an intelligent production application scenario for seedbed green leafy vegetables. The 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 versions of this scenario were respectively implemented at the Pudong Nicheng Gongping Village Base, Xuanqiao Yaolu Base, and Huinan Qiaobei Base.

Among them, Yaolu Village Base has achieved full automation, unmanned, and data-driven production based on the intelligent production application scenario of seedbed green leafy vegetables. This scenario integrates more than 20 intellectual property rights such as independently developed equipment, control technology, and planting models, solving the bottleneck problem of high-end intelligent equipment and key automation control technologies, and promoting a qualitative leap in the realization of domestic agricultural facilities and equipment.

The 3.0 version of the Huinan Bridge North Base, whether in terms of independent and controllable localization of equipment or further innovation in system integration. Among them, VBWQ12450 roof fully open glass greenhouse, fully automatic logistics seedbed and supporting intelligent equipment, eggplant and fruit production facilities, integrated water and fertilizer facilities and fertilizer recycling and treatment system, waste treatment equipment, energy-saving and environmentally friendly heating and cooling system, and so on, are like being in a modern unmanned intelligent factory, and the sense of technology in future agriculture is rushing forward.

Here, each equipment has achieved intelligent control, automatic collection and recording of operational data, and full digitalization of the production process; Each equipment can be remotely controlled, and the fully automatic logistics seedbed adopts digital twin technology, providing efficient production scheduling solutions for green leafy vegetable production. Through the optimization and upgrading of a complete set of facilities and intelligent control systems, the information tracking of the entire process of sowing, planting, management, and harvesting of hole plate green leafy vegetables has been achieved. Dynamic monitoring of seedbed production data has been achieved, and combined with the three-dimensional seedbed system, the entire growth trajectory of seeds has been recorded and analyzed to form a growth report. Through big data collection and analysis, an agricultural production database has been formed to analyze the demand for temperature, light, gas, water, and fertilizer at different growth stages of green leafy vegetables, achieving yield prediction and intelligent scheduling, and continuously optimizing crop planting models.

Here, through system integration, the entire process of centralized management, control, scheduling, and monitoring can be truly digitized and managed on one screen, achieving an all-weather, all process, and all space unmanned production mode for the production of potted green leafy vegetables. The localization and independent control of equipment are certainly important. What is even more exciting about this project is the realization of "system integration" in facility agriculture. Looking at the same industry, some are engaged in greenhouse engineering, some are engaged in irrigation engineering, and some are engaged in agricultural Internet of Things, but they are all managed separately. The Huinan Bridge North Base is creating a full lifecycle management application scenario, which is independent and controllable in system integration. This is at the forefront in China.

The significance of technological achievements lies not only in technological breakthroughs, but also in their transformation and implementation, achieving sustainable operations. The first prize achievements of Guoxingnong and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University team in science and technology have always been driven by marketization. Through the cooperation of the Pudong New Area Agricultural Committee and the Qingmei Group in the area, these high standard facility agriculture bases are all operated by the Qingmei Group in a market-oriented manner, overcoming the bottleneck of technology transformation and landing, and gradually exploring a new path for the development of modern facility agriculture. As the operator, Qingmei Group has tasted the sweetness of promoting agriculture through technology. Compared with traditional planting methods, the 5000 acre facility agricultural base operated by Qingmei in Pudong has increased the efficiency of chicken hair vegetable cultivation by 25 times. The chicken hair vegetable produced by the base has been sold in more than 1000 directly operated stores in the city, receiving unanimous praise from the public, and has also become a beautiful business card for Qingmei's green, safe, and high-quality vegetables.

As a industrialized agriculture, facility agriculture represents the development direction of modern agriculture and is also the essence of building a strong agricultural country. Meanwhile, as a highly intensive agricultural industry, it requires relatively high initial investment, and the guiding role of the government is crucial. According to relevant experts, based on the experience of developed countries in developing facility agriculture, the government should play a role in the development of facility agriculture, strengthen planning guidance, policy support, and financial investment, and guide resources, technology, talent, and other factors to gather in modern facility agriculture.

Anchoring the new direction of modern facility agriculture, the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and Government have made special arrangements for promoting facility agriculture in the implementation opinions on the key work of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization in 2023. Within this year, 4000 acres of high standard facility vegetable fields will be constructed, accelerating the pace of "machine replacement" for vegetable and fruit production, and promoting the development of high-end intelligent agricultural machinery and equipment industry. The person in charge of the Pudong New Area Agriculture Committee stated that based on summarizing the previous achievements and experiences, the committee will continue to explore and take the lead in facility agriculture, further increase the pace of facility agriculture construction, promote the full mechanization of vegetable production, intelligent management of all factors, and the development of the entire industry chain, and make every effort to do a good job in high-quality and efficient agriculture, livable and business friendly rural areas, and prosperous farmers.