What does smart agriculture look like? See how Internet Plus agriculture gets down to earth
What smart agriculture looks like
How to plant and how to raise, all handled with one button
“Farming with mobile phone navigation is truly amazing!” On April 14, farmer Deng Fade of Qingshubao Village, Changyang Tujia Autonomous County, Hubei Province, stood in his own vegetable plot and showed reporters with his mobile phone that which grade this plot belongs to, what the soil fertility is like, and what the proportions of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for fertilization should be were all clear at a glance on the screen. “In the past, we relied on experience, and vegetable yields were unpredictable. Now with high technology, we save fertilizer and can still increase output by 700 kg per mu!”
The “mobile phone navigation farming system” is a piece of software developed through cooperation between the Changyang County Agriculture Bureau and Huazhong Agricultural University. It integrates practical technologies such as soil testing and formulated fertilization, crop cultivation, and pest and disease diagnosis. Since September last year, 274 computers and more than 12,000 mobile phones in rural areas across the county have installed this system, benefiting 10% of farming households.
Walking into Pengdun Village, Zhongxiang City, Jingmen City, the blue waves of Qinglong Lake Reservoir ripple, and several long white poles float on the large expanse of water. What are these? “These are sensors. In fish farming, the worst fear is fish suffocating from lack of oxygen and the pond turning over. With this equipment, data such as water temperature, oxygen content, and pH value across 2,000 mu of water surface can be seen at any time. When to aerate and when to feed can all be solved with one click of the mouse.” Technician Yu Lei turned on the computer to demonstrate, “If a fish gets sick, catch one and place it on the instrument, and the image is transmitted to the Internet of Things system. The microscope can magnify the diseased part of the fish, so experts can answer questions in time and tell us what disease the fish has and how to treat it.”
Changes in production methods
Boost labor productivity and open up the “last mile” of agricultural technology services
Mobile phones guide farmers in precise fertilization, the Internet of Things enables scientific fish farming, and watering, fertilizing, and spraying are all precisely controlled by the Internet…… In Hubei, information technology is bringing new changes to traditional agriculture.
Cheng Gang, director of the Agriculture Bureau of Changyang Tujia Autonomous County, said that the greatest benefit of mobile phone navigation farming is that it solves the “last mile” problem of agricultural technology services. Changyang has many mountains and few people, and the limited agricultural technicians cannot handle everything, but every farming household has at least one mobile phone, so many problems can be solved by farmers consulting through their phones at home. In addition, soil testing and formulated fertilization can also reduce chemical fertilizer use and improve the quality and safety level of agricultural products.
Facing the constraints of resource scarcity, agriculture urgently needs to improve its level of refined management. In the view of Chen Shiyuan, deputy general manager of Qinglong Lake Agricultural Development Company, the benefits of the Internet of Things are, first, lowering breeding costs, and second, enhancing the brand. He said that by connecting computers and sensors, it is possible to know what disease the fish have and what medicine to give, greatly reducing losses caused by excessive medication.
Transforming agriculture through Internet of Things technology and improving the degree of intelligence in each link helps achieve “measurable environment, controllable production, and traceable quality.” Chen Shiyuan said that with the Internet of Things, all “Pengdun” brand products have been given QR codes. With a scan, consumers can see what fertilizer was applied and what medicine was used. Although the price is a bit higher, they still sell well.
Production efficiency has greatly improved. At the thousand-mu blueberry orchard of Lenovo Jiawo Company in Qujialing, Jingmen City, rows of blueberries are neatly arranged. Between each row of blueberries are long black water pipes and a drip irrigation system, and white sensors are installed in the field. “Blueberries have strict requirements for soil acidity and alkalinity. The pH value must be maintained between 4.5 and 5. Beyond this range, they cannot grow. But the local soil pH value is around 6.5, so the acidity and alkalinity must be adjusted at any time.” Base manager Lyu Gang graduated from Qingdao Agricultural University and speaks about the technology very professionally.
Lyu Gang introduced that in the past, growing blueberries required hiring people to take soil samples at any time to test acidity and alkalinity, and manually composting little by little in the field. One laborer cost more than 150 yuan per day. Now, with just a light click of the mouse, the drip irrigation system in the field can automatically water and fertilize, which is much more convenient and also more precise.
At present, Hubei Province has developed 38 agricultural Internet of Things demonstration bases, involving 150,000 mu of cultivated farmland and more than 20 breeding farms.