https://j.people.com.cn/n3/2026/0317/c95952-20436769.html
Xiong Jiaojun, head of Hunan Honshu Biotechnology Co., manages the world’s first unmanned (or small-staffed) smart farm for regenerated rice. This farm was constructed in 2023 by a team led by Academician Luo Xiwen of South China Agricultural University, Professor Peng Shaobing of Huazhong Agricultural University, and Professor Tang Qiyuan of Hunan Agricultural University, in collaboration with Hunan Hongshuo Biotechnology Co., Ltd. The experimental field covers nearly 500 mu (approximately 33.3 hectares). Currently, smart and minimally managed operations have been largely achieved at a 3000 mu (approximately 200 hectares) site.
At the farm’s cloud management center, large screens display information such as daily farm work, weather, farm equipment quantity statistics, pest outbreak predictions, and smart irrigation. This serves as the farm’s “brain,” allowing for real-time data monitoring, analysis of rice growth, and smart decision-making. Precise operations are executed by cloud-connected farm equipment with just a mouse click.
The farm is equipped with smart sensing systems such as automatic water level gauges, pest monitoring stations, and field weather stations. The cloud management center incorporates a “deep learning classification algorithm,” enabling real-time display of the actual conditions of each field, as well as “anomaly identification and analysis” capabilities. This allows for smart management of everything from the timing of planting, fertilization, and pesticide application, to determining which fields require irrigation or additional fertilization.
The unmanned farm has already achieved near-complete traceability and comprehensive coverage of every stage of rice cultivation, from tilling and sowing to management and harvesting. In recent years, the average yield per mu (approximately 6.7 ares) has exceeded 1200 kilograms, an increase of 400 kilograms per mu compared to conventional double-cropping methods.
Regenerated rice is a cultivation method that allows rice plants to sprout again from harvested stalks and produce ears of rice. During the first harvest, it is crucial to minimize trampling of the rice plants. Traditional manned harvesters often trampled the plants due to the low linearity of their travel paths. However, unmanned agricultural machinery travels based on a work path, reducing the trampling rate during straight-line travel from 45% to approximately 18%.
According to Mr. Xiong, the expert teams from three universities each have their own areas of expertise and are collaborating with one another. Under the guidance of these experts, modern farmers are adopting an “easy-to-use” farming style where a cloud management center issues commands and all they have to do is press a start button. Through these three years of trials, the farm has developed from a mere experimental field into a reproducible and disseminationable production model for lake district agriculture.
By 2025, this unmanned farming technology will be implemented across 2,000 mu (133.3 hectares) in Nan County, Yiyang City. Mr. Xiong is also constructing the Hongshuo Smart Agriculture Service Industrial Park in Nan County, supporting over 20,000 mu (approximately 1,333.3 hectares) of cultivated area through the standardization of production technology, the smartification of agricultural services, and the normalization of agricultural management.
The image shows an aerial photograph taken on March 13th of the unmanned smart farm for regenerated rice in Datonghu District, Hunan Province, located on the Dongting Lake Plain (photographed by Xu Gang).
