High-tech transformation of traditional agriculture has become the trend of the times
If you want to ventilate the rice seedlings in the seedling shed, you only need to pick up your phone at home and press a few keys to open the rolling shutter door of the seedling shed——a high-tech scene from Hollywood movies has now been realized in the intelligent rice production of Qixing Farm in the Heilongjiang reclamation area.
“The farm uses global satellite positioning technology, remote sensing technology and geographic information technology to achieve quantitative and precise production management. Compared with ordinary fields, the farmland in the IoT application demonstration park reduces pesticide and chemical fertilizer use by more than 10 percent per mu and increases yield per unit area by 5 percent to 10 percent.” said Liu Cheng, deputy farm director of Qixing Farm.
The IoT agriculture of Qixing Farm is only a microcosm of how high technology in our country is “playing with” traditional agriculture. The 65 years since the founding of New China have been 65 years of rapid economic and social development in our country, and also 65 years in which our country's agricultural science and technology have advanced by leaps and bounds, driving agricultural production to achieve leapfrog development.
⟦NL> “Sixty-five years ago, the technical level of our country's agricultural production and the level of grain yield per unit area were both very low. There was little infrastructure construction, the ability to withstand natural disasters was very weak, extensive cultivation brought low yields, and people depended on the weather for food. Grain and other agricultural products were seriously insufficient, and in disaster years begging for food was very common.” said Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who has long followed agricultural development.
Today, our country's agriculture has long since transformed from the traditional farming model of ox plowing and iron plows into an intelligent agricultural production method of “large machinery” and “large technology.” Drones spraying pesticides, sprinkler and drip irrigation for water-saving irrigation, large combine harvesters speeding across the fields…… Such scenes can be seen everywhere in many farmlands in our country. At present, the national comprehensive mechanization level is close to 60 percent.
Especially worth mentioning is that over the past 65 years, a number of major scientific and technological achievements such as agricultural breeding have successively emerged, becoming the “golden key” to helping solve the problem of feeding the people——hybrid rice breeding is world-leading; hybrid corn, genetically modified insect-resistant cotton and double-low rapeseed have been successfully developed; and excellent breeding livestock varieties such as lean-meat-type pig hybrid combinations and Chinese black-and-white dairy cattle have been selected and bred……
It is precisely under the impetus of agricultural high technology that the Chinese people have gradually emerged from the shadow of memories of insufficient food and clothing and achieved a major leap to having ample food and clothing and eating well and eating better.
Ms. Mou, a Beijing resident, recently bought selenium-enriched black peanuts on a website. She told reporters: “I heard that this kind of peanut has the effect of protecting the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems and improving immunity. My mother likes it very much.”
Ms. Mou's mother, however, has long since sealed memories of past days such as winter-stored Chinese cabbage deep in her memory. She said: “Over these years, I have seen more varieties of food and a fuller range of food types. Ordinary people no longer worry about what to eat.”
Selenium-enriched black peanuts, square watermelons, white eggplants, space pumpkins weighing more than 100 jin…… In recent years, our country's ability to research and develop superior new varieties has steadily improved. High technology has continuously improved agricultural product varieties and enriched ordinary people's dining tables, and the Chinese people have shifted from eating their fill to eating well.
From facing the yellow earth with backs to the sky to easily irrigating with a click of the mouse, science and technology are a mirror, reflecting the changes of the times and recording the great achievements of agricultural development.
Opening the historical records, from 1949 to 2013, our country's grain output increased from 113.18 million tons to 601.935 million tons; cotton output increased from 444,000 tons to 6.3 million tons; meat output increased from 2.21 million tons to 85 million tons; and our country's per capita grain possession rose from less than 420 jin of raw grain in 1949 to more than 800 jin at present, exceeding the world average.
From breeding to cultivation methods, from planting to livestock raising, from production links to circulation and consumption links…… Science and technology are giving traditional agriculture wings to fly high.