Self-driven harvesters yield fruits for farmers
Print Edition
Ning Fengfeng only sleeps around five hours a day, keeping himself busy during the wheat harvest season.
The 65-year-old combine harvester driver has been busy reaping wheat for farmers in Yuncheng City, northern Shanxi Province, since late last month. His 148-horsepower tractor can reap 1 hectare of wheat in less than two hours.
By last Wednesday, 18.5 million hectares of wheat, or over 80 percent of the total area nationwide, had been harvested. Of that, 95.5 percent were reaped by combine harvesters, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said.
Ning said he watched a video a few days ago featuring a self-driving harvester.
“People only need to press some buttons and all the work will be done. It is very much like a science fiction movie,” he said. “I plan to buy one next year and then I can have a good sleep.”
Self-driving harvesting is only one of the processes of agricultural production. China has set a target of gradually building automated farms, utilizing smart technologies to improve quality and efficiency and also reduce costs.
Earlier this month, China’s first trial run of automated farming was conducted in Xinghua, eastern Jiangsu Province, with the support of 12 firms and agencies.
More than 10 autonomous agricultural machines were involved in the whole production process from plowing the land and transplanting rice seedlings, to spreading fertilizer and pesticide and finally harvesting.
“We have a positioning system accurate to a centimeter, which enables us to transform various kinds of agricultural equipment into automated versions,” said Yang Shouqi, the chief of the committee for the Communist Party of China at Jiangsu University.
The Telematics Industry Application Alliance, one of the members in the trial program, plans to conduct further farming experiments in Heilongjiang and Hebei provinces as well as Chongqing City.
“The automated farming experiment will last seven years,” said Pang Chunlin, secretary general of the non-governmental organization. The agency has more than 600 members from 12 countries and regions.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
