Technology Gives Wings to Agriculture, Helping Modern Agriculture Soar

Editor's Note: As the primary driving factor safeguarding our country's food security and sustained agricultural growth, science and technology's contribution rate to agricultural growth has reached 55.2%. How can the role of science and technology be better leveraged to give agriculture “wings”? In 2013, the Ministry of Agriculture launched and implemented the "National Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Capacity Conditions Construction Plan (2012-2016)". With strong support from the National Development and Reform Commission, during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, the central government allocated a cumulative investment of 3.43 billion yuan, supporting the construction of 14 national agricultural science and technology innovation platforms and the Ministry of Agriculture key laboratories (stations) of 28 disciplinary groups. Proceeding from the actual needs of agricultural research institutions at the central, provincial, and municipal levels, a coordinated design and systematic deployment were carried out for the layout, construction content, project management, and operating mechanisms of our country's agricultural science and technology innovation capacity conditions construction, promoting collaborative research, co-construction and sharing among research institutions, and forming a virtuous operating mechanism with functional linkage and mutual support.

Agricultural Environment Disciplinary Group:

Establishing an Environmental IoT Data Center

The Agricultural Environment Disciplinary Group consists of 1 comprehensive key laboratory, 2 specialized key laboratories, 4 regional key laboratories, 23 agricultural environment science observation and experiment stations, as well as 2 co-constructed regional laboratories and 7 co-constructed science observation and experiment stations. It focuses on conducting basic and applied basic research around six major directions: climate change and agriculture, agricultural meteorological disaster reduction and prevention, agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control, production area environmental protection, biodiversity utilization, and agricultural environmental management theory.

In response to scientific issues in the agricultural environment field and the major needs of modern agricultural development, the disciplinary group focuses on building the disciplinary system, basic conditions, talent team, operating mechanisms, and innovation culture, organizing collaborative innovation on common and regional major key technologies in this discipline, carrying out long-term scientific observation, scientific experiments, and technical demonstrations, leading scientific and technological progress in agricultural environment, and supporting modern agricultural development.

Since the Agricultural Environment Disciplinary Group was designated in 2012 as a pilot disciplinary group for the Ministry of Agriculture's laboratory conditions and capacity construction project, through three years of construction, the laboratories and experiment stations of the disciplinary group have achieved significant improvements in basic conditions, institutional development, and mechanism development. A batch of technologies and equipment developed has been widely applied in agricultural environment development, with significant social and environmental benefits. At present, a division-of-labor and collaboration mechanism, academic exchange mechanism, resource sharing mechanism, comprehensive laboratory lead management mechanism, and dynamic assessment mechanism have been formed.

The disciplinary group actively promotes the construction of the agricultural environment Internet of Things. The established “real-time sensing - stable transmission - centralized decision-making management” system based on the agricultural environment monitoring IoT data center provides scientific data and technical support for carrying out long-term scientific experiments and technical demonstrations, and provides first-hand emergency warning plans and material conditions support for technological innovation for research on the occurrence patterns and regulation of agricultural meteorological disasters, the evolution of agricultural production area environments, agricultural pollution monitoring and early warning, agricultural non-point source pollution control, and restoration of degraded agricultural ecosystems. It is conducive to improving agriculture's ability to respond to global climate change and agricultural output, enhancing agriculture's disaster prevention and reduction capacity, and improving our country's environmental quality. Through this system, researchers and decision-making management departments in the environmental discipline field can not only grasp real-time national agricultural environment monitoring data information, disciplinary research progress, and research results, but also promptly make scientific analysis and decision-making management.

Animal Nutrition and Feed Science Disciplinary Group:

Creating a Technical System for Healthy Livestock and Poultry Farming

The Animal Nutrition and Feed Science Disciplinary Group consists of 1 comprehensive key laboratory, 10 specialized (regional) key laboratories, 2 enterprise key laboratories, and 9 agricultural environment science observation and experiment stations.

In terms of disciplinary group construction, through the implementation of 14 projects, 85.52 million yuan in new fixed assets were added, improving and enhancing the research capacity of key laboratories, enhancing the field observation and data analysis capabilities of each experiment station, promoting the interactive integration of multiple disciplines such as animal physiology, metabolic biochemistry, animal nutrition, feed science, grassland science, and farming technology, promoting the expansion of the connotation and extension of the animal nutrition and feed science discipline, driving innovation in our country's livestock, poultry, and aquatic animal nutrition discipline, and enhancing the ability of the animal nutrition discipline to support the sustainable development of the farming industry. At the same time, a batch of scientific and technological achievements were made in the development and efficient utilization of feed resources and new additives, high-quality and safe production of livestock, poultry, and aquatic products, and energy-saving and emission-reduction healthy farming technology, cultivating 40 person-times of outstanding talents of various types including National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars, publishing a series of high-level papers, and supporting the technological upgrading and sustainable development of our country's modern farming industry.

Since the “12th Five-Year Plan”, the key laboratories of the Animal Nutrition and Feed Science Disciplinary Group have made major breakthroughs in major key technologies for healthy livestock and poultry farming, including nutritional feed regulation technology for healthy piglet farming, nutritional regulation and efficient feed utilization technology for healthy broiler farming, dairy cow nutritional regulation and standardized feeding key technology for high-quality milk production, new breed cultivation and farming technology for Beijing ducks, systematic nutrition technology for healthy Jian carp farming, efficient feed utilization and precision feeding technology for dairy cows, and feed enzyme technology systems. Research has formed a series of new technologies, new theories, and new methods for healthy livestock and poultry farming, leading the continuous upgrading and development of the industry.

In terms of driving agricultural development, it has promoted scientific research in fields such as livestock and poultry nutritional metabolism and nutritional requirements, nutrition and health, nutrition and livestock product quality and safety, feed nutritional value evaluation methods and database establishment, and nutrition and environment. Through the vertical joint collaborative innovation model of basic frontier research, common technology research and development, and major product development, combined with forms such as doctoral workstations and research centers, it strengthens cooperation with enterprises, achievement demonstration, and transformation, and has made significant progress in new industrialized farming models and process equipment for livestock and poultry, pollutant emission reduction and waste resource recycling in livestock and poultry farming, livestock and poultry product quality testing and safety evaluation technology, healthy livestock and poultry farming process control technology, and livestock and poultry product quality traceability technology.

Agricultural Product Processing Disciplinary Group:

Monetizing Achievements, Increasing Income by Tens of Millions of Yuan

The Agricultural Product Processing Disciplinary Group includes 1 comprehensive key laboratory and 6 specialized key laboratories. The disciplinary group has 5 key research directions, namely agricultural product processing quality and control, agricultural product preservation and logistics, hazard control in agricultural product processing, agricultural product nutrition and function, and agricultural product processing equipment.

At present, some achievements have become actual products. For example, the comprehensive agricultural product processing laboratory used independently designed integrated equipment for industrializing traditional staple foods to develop a series of potato staple food products. The first generation of potato steamed buns was launched and sold in many supermarkets in the Beijing area on June 1, receiving unanimous praise from consumers.

The key technology and equipment creation achievements for low-temperature pressed peanut oil extraction and high-value utilization of peanut meal protein have been transformed and applied in 9 enterprises, with cumulative sales revenue of 14.85 billion yuan over 3 years and new profits of 800 million yuan.

The research and application achievements of variable-temperature pressure-difference combined expansion drying technology for fruits and vegetables have been industrialized and applied in 8 enterprises. In the past five years, enterprises have achieved cumulative new sales revenue of more than 300 million yuan and new profits of more than 62 million yuan, driving more than 10,000 fruit and vegetable planting households to realize processing value-added.

The research and application achievements of key technologies for improving the quality of fresh mutton pioneered mutton grading and cutting technology and devices suitable for our country's sheep breeds, consumption characteristics, and processing methods. They have been promoted and applied in leading processing enterprises in major mutton-producing areas such as Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and Xinjiang, with new profits of 1.096 billion yuan, driving 20,000 farming and herding households to raise mutton sheep and increasing farming and herding household income by about 2.5 billion yuan.

The research and development of multiple common core technologies based on cold chain circulation of fruits and vegetables mainly uses full-process automatic precise temperature control (ice temperature) as the core method, adopts the “ice temperature preservation cold chain + MA + pollution-free preservative” model for demonstration and promotion application in multiple fruit and vegetable production areas in our country, reducing the fruit and vegetable spoilage rate to 5% and increasing added value by 50%~200%.

Facility Agriculture Engineering Disciplinary Group:

Making Facility Agriculture More Efficient and Smarter

The Facility Agriculture Engineering Disciplinary Group consists of 1 comprehensive key laboratory, 4 specialized (regional) laboratories, and 3 science observation and experiment stations. The disciplinary group focuses on researching and solving common technology and regional key technology problems in the fields of facility livestock and poultry farming and facility plant cultivation, providing scientific and technological innovation achievements for the development of the modern agricultural industry, gathering and cultivating a group of high-level scientific and technological innovation talents in the field of facility agriculture engineering, building a comprehensive platform for our country's facility agriculture talent cultivation, scientific research, and technology promotion, and enhancing our country's facility agriculture industry scientific and technological innovation capacity as a whole.

Since the establishment of the disciplinary group, systematic innovation has been carried out in basic theories and methods, key technologies, and equipment for facility agriculture, forming scientific research achievements such as welfare-oriented healthy livestock and poultry farming, slightly acidic electrolyzed water harmless disinfection and environmental purification, non-arable land greenhouse structure and construction technology, solar greenhouse energy saving and environmental regulation, clean development mechanism for livestock and poultry manure biogas treatment, and energy conversion of facility agriculture waste.

At present, our country's facility agriculture industry is very large in scale, but the overall technical level is still relatively low. Through the construction of the disciplinary group, a batch of breakthrough new facility agriculture technologies, new materials, and new equipment have been formed in aspects such as healthy livestock and poultry farming, plant factories, solar greenhouses, waste treatment, and biomass energy conversion. Through systematic integration and comprehensive application, the technical level of solar greenhouse facilities with Chinese characteristics and healthy and efficient facility agriculture production has been relatively significantly improved.

Through disciplinary group construction, the role of regional key laboratories and experiment stations has been actively brought into play, exploring the advantageous characteristics and differences of different regional conditions and development stages in our country, separately formulating development strategies such as advanced facility agriculture production models and technologies for advantageous resource areas, urban facility agriculture industry, and key technologies for non-arable land facility agriculture, and building regionally distinctive advantageous products, distinctive facility agriculture production methods, technologies, and equipment, promoting the sustained and healthy development of the industry.