A “Smart Farm Innovation Consortium” in Changsha, Hunan Province, will build more than 100 smart unmanned farms during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25). The project will be led by Huazhi Biotech Co., an agricultural service provider http://www.wiserice.com.cn/index.php/en/ . According to the announcement, the project will focus on major food crops such as rice, wheat, and corn over the next three years. More than 100 digital model farms will be built in each leading production area, with each farm covering an area of more than 10,000 mu (667 ha). At the same time, a national digital farm network of more than 1 million mu will be built, with an agricultural AI (artificial intelligence) decision-making center (“farm brain”) featuring big data and using machine learning and deep learning as analysis tools. Over the next five years, the ripple effect of the model will allow the Citic Agricultural Group http://www.agri.citic/html/en/ to build more 5G-based model farms, for the standardization and modernization of China’s agriculture.
Japan JST China news, June 1, 2021