The 2026 report of the government on the work of the light net news (journalist liu zheng) explicitly promotes the advanced application of agricultural equipment development applications. The “fifty five” programme further deploys the “development of smart agriculture” “improving the productivity of agricultural labour and the contribution of scientific and technological progress”. Under the policy winds, an actual battle match focused on the frontier of intelligent agriculture is taking place in shanghai。
In recent days, the finals of the fifth multi-agricultural science and technology competition have been officially launched in the shanghai agricultural science and technology series. Prior to that, 46 teams from around the world, over 300 participants had signed up. After intense competitions, the saibun farmers team of the chinese agricultural university, theberry cube team led by shanghai transport university, the opp jigerberry team led by op light, and the proposed ecological team led by zhejiang ta kinmei, crossed the 22 initial teams to advance to the finals. This was the fifth consecutive year of the competition and the platform's “billion-dollar support” programme as an important player in the field of agricultural research. In contrast to the first race in the hothouse in the highlands, the team was required to design and build a full-manufacturing plant of approximately 50 square metres and conduct a six-month national strawberry cultivation exercise。
A strawberry's "wistle" and four solutions
When strawberries live in “vertical highs”, when sunlight is precisely replaced by led spectra, when water fattening is adjusted by the ai-seconds, when a fruit grows, it is long gone from eating by the sky to a precision dialogue between technology and nature. The technological innovations surrounding strawberry cultivation in plant plants during the current competition were highly visible and visible。
The shanghai transport university-led berries cube team brought with it an intelligent diagnostic system. The use of mobile phones to photograph strawberry leaves allows the system to analyse nitrogen and potassium levels in the plant, with an accuracy of over 90 per cent during the trial planting phase. "it's like giving every strawberries an exclusive nutritionist who's hungry and thirsty, and ai can see it, and then he can feed it." captain he shiwei made an example。
The operchberry team has put the power of lighting technology to the extreme. It has autonomously developed four-channel water-cooled plant lamps, taking heat from the water cycle, and has designed a “central power supply system” that integrates more than 400 decentralized power sources of lamps with a light-voltaic energy storage system using solar energy. Captain wang wanhai made a cut: “this package will reduce energy consumption by more than 10 per cent. For commercial operations, every amount of electricity saved is the profit of real money and silver.”
Zhejiang's proposed ecological team has come a very different way. As the only team in the four teams that have adopted the shallow liquid flow culture model, they have built a micro-ecosystem in hydroponic systems using microbacterial agents to recycle plant residues through fermentation back into nutrients. Captain ho xianyang defined the system as “de-eco-agriculture” — breaking the dichotomy between traditional “organism” and “inorganic” and using technology to simulate the cyclic metabolism of natural ecology。
The cybernomists team at the agricultural university of china uses remote control: sensors monitor temperature and humidity in real time and cameras observe strawberries at all times. "like our cat, i look at it every day." the team leader, chen min hui, laughed: “we gather data every day through communication with workers, through imagery, and through crop growth models from the backstage, judging its growth in many ways.” the team also designed a “second windback” system, which uses cold air outside the house to cool the plant, significantly reducing air conditioning consumption。
Where is the “new” farmer
Behind a strawberries is a group of young people who know algorithms, know equipment, are good in farming. Chen minhui said, "we are not just growing strawberries, we are talking to plants." read its needs with sensors, use algorithms to satisfy its growth and use equipment to reduce human burdens。
The “new” of new farmers is also found across borders, boundaries and professions. The operchberry team, led by the lighting enterprise, brought led photo-efficient, water-cooled heat, centralized power supply technologies into agriculture; theberry cube team brought together the shanghai three compounds and two outside enterprises, industrial, agronomy and ai, working together; and the proposed ecological team brought together breeders, equipment engineers, ecologists, etc., to develop the full chain capacity of “breeding-build-plant-plant-plant-commercial”. They are no longer confined to mono-agriculture, but use multidisciplinary knowledge to address the real pains of agricultural modernization。
The “new” of the new farmers is more evident in their innovativeness, their ability to land and their responsibility. They are cloud management, ai diagnostics, replacing heavy physical strength with automated equipment; they pursue high-quality production and supply throughout the year, providing secure supplies to urban agriculture; and they place greater emphasis on safety, flavor and functionality, so that strawberries can be nurtured with low sugar, selenium and high nutrition. Chen min hui said: “we want to harness the power of scientific research and new technologies to make agricultural cultivation more efficient, intelligent and sustainable, to make more people willing to engage in agriculture and to make agriculture a dynamic occupation.”
It's a bridge: from the field to the farm, from the lab to the industrial chain
"this is my second year in a row." chen said to the journalist. From last year's algorithms team, to this year's global team leader, “let's write the papers on the ground, leave the patents in the factory, push the technology to the market”. From 2020 to the present, the multi-agricultural science and technology contest has also entered its sixth year. “it has been held since then, and has grown from an industry competitive competition to an incubator for the growth of young farmers and agricultural talent in the fields of innovation and transformation of agricultural science and technology in shanghai and throughout the country”. At the launch ceremony, liu gang, a secondary inspector and chief economist of the shanghai rural commission, said:。
The competition is also constantly pushing for new results of productive research integration. Based on the data and experience accumulated over many years of participation in the competition, the sabon farmers ' team is in the process of writing relevant patents and published papers on technologies for the monitoring of hydrofertilizer systems and plant physiology. A multi-channel spectral strip lamp developed by the opp ji-berry team during the competition has been ordered by yunnan merchants. From laboratory to plant plants, from technical validation to commercialization, the competition is promoting the industrialization of scientific and technological innovation in agriculture. The deputy director of the centre for foreign economic cooperation of the ministry of agriculture and rural development, machi, has just stated: “as a result of the competition, it will be possible to see not only the latest technological explorations and experiments in national plants, but also the typical practice of deep integration of productive research and studies in promoting scientific and technological innovation in agriculture.”
When the algorithms society talks with plants, when new farmers use ai to “understand” the demand for strawberries, china's intelligent agriculture is moving from laboratory to field and world. The chief scientist of the institute of urban agriculture of the chinese academy of agricultural sciences, yang, stated that chinese plant plant technology had the unique advantage of being low-cost, practical and well-suited, and was gradually working together in europe, the middle east, south america and central asia to serve food security “all the way”. In the future, as energy costs decline, the ai model matures, and unmanned equipment becomes widely available, china's smart agriculture programme will accelerate its movement to the world, providing stable, efficient and green solutions for food-deficit regions around the world。
