Two front-page appearances in one week! Recently, Science and Technology Daily published two reports on its front page: "Smart Farm Machinery Draws Spring Pictures" and "Hunan: Smart Agriculture Illuminates Farmers' Road to Prosperity". The articles used Zoomlion's smart agricultural machinery and Zoomlion's smart agriculture as typical cases to show how the company has helped improve the quality and efficiency of spring farming production through technological innovation. The following are excerpts from the two reports.

▲Zoomlion was featured on the front page of Science and Technology Daily twice in one week

Smart agricultural machinery paints a picture of spring

【Technology empowers spring farming】

◎Reporters Wu Chunxin, Yu Huiyou, Hua Ling, Jie Manbin

      On February 24, Zhou He from Dingcheng Agricultural Cooperative in Changde, Hunan Province, told Science and Technology Daily that the cooperative used intelligent rice transplanters to carry out rice transplanting operations in different terrains and scales. "Its 'S' bend linkage technology and automatic alignment function simplified the complex operation of rice transplanting, and the accuracy and efficiency of rice transplanting were significantly improved. One operation season can save us nearly 10,000 yuan in labor costs."

▲Zoomlion’s intelligent rice transplanter operation scene

Intelligent agricultural machinery improves efficiency

      The rice transplanters used by Dingcheng Agricultural Cooperative in Changde, Hunan Province, use the "intelligent driving" system independently developed by the Institute of Rice Machinery Division of Zoomlion Heavy Industry. The institute's director Zheng Wen introduced: "The 'intelligent driving' system realizes the organic integration of three technologies: automatic driving, operation per acre, and vehicle monitoring. This changes the traditional two-person operation mode of rice transplanters to a one-person operation mode, providing a smarter solution for rice transplanting."

▲Zoomlion’s intelligent rice transplanter unmanned operation

      …Tractors, graders and rice transplanters equipped with Beidou navigation can be unmanned, and the operation error is controlled at the centimeter level. In the view of Luo Xiwen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at South China Agricultural University, the development of agricultural machinery has gone through four stages: the 1.0 era is "from nothing to something", with machines replacing human and animal power; the 2.0 era is "from something to everything", with full mechanization throughout the process; the 3.0 era is "from everything to good", using information technology to improve the level of agricultural mechanization; the 4.0 era is "from good to strong", realizing the automation and intelligence of agricultural machinery. Today, my country's agricultural machinery development has entered the 4.0 era.

Hunan: Smart agriculture illuminates farmers' path to wealth

【Remember the General Secretary’s instructions】

◎Our reporter Yu Huiyou

      Facing the warm sunshine of early spring, along the Xiehuang Highway, the Science and Technology Daily reporter arrived at Gangzhongping Village, Xiejiapu Town, Dingcheng District, Changde City, Hunan Province. On one side of the highway are the villagers' residences, and on the other side is the core area of ​​the 10,000-acre comprehensive demonstration area for grain production in Dingcheng District. Passing through the gate with a plaque that reads "Planting a well-off land, planting kindness in the heart, and growing a big family and spring in the United States", it is the home of Dai Hong, a large grain grower. Dai Hong still clearly remembers the scene when General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected the demonstration area in March 2024.

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High-standard farmland is more "intelligent"

      In the core area of ​​the 10,000-acre comprehensive demonstration area for grain production, members of the Smart Agriculture Project Team of Zhonglian Smart Agriculture Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhonglian Smart Agriculture") stationed at the Dingcheng District Modern Agricultural Service Center are installing Internet of Things equipment such as field wooden plank roads and smart gates. "Before March 10, we will complete the hardware engineering part of the project," said Li Chao, the project leader.

▲One of the demonstration farms built by Zhonglian Smart Agriculture

      In 2015, Xiejiapu Town started the construction of high-standard farmland for the first time. In 2024, the local area began further transformation. This transformation not only upgraded the digital farmland in the core area and deployed intelligent Internet of Things equipment, but also combined satellites, ground teams, and agricultural machinery terminals to realize the digital information collection of "sky, ground, people, and machines".

      The renovation further optimized the layout of the fields. Li Chao introduced that the original number of fields in the core area was more than 110, with an average area of ​​2.7 mu per field. The fields were irregular in shape, which was not conducive to mechanical operation and planting management. After the renovation, the number of fields was reduced to 40, with an average area of ​​7.89 mu per field, and the cultivated land area was increased by 2.5 mu. The efficiency of agricultural machinery was improved, and it was more conducive to high-horsepower mechanized operation. "After the small fields were transformed into large fields, the number of IoT devices was also reduced, which effectively reduced the cost of digital agriculture construction and facilitated the replication and promotion of digital agriculture in other areas." He said.

      In addition, Zoomlion Smart Agriculture will also implement a technical service pilot in the demonstration area, and escort agricultural production through technologies such as automatic planning of sampling points, high-density soil sampling, multi-spectral image acquisition, and growth monitoring and analysis. "We extract basic farmland information and upload information such as channels, ridges, electric poles, and crop locations to the database with one click. The drone can directly operate when it arrives on site, which can increase the efficiency of general drone fertilization operations by 10%-20%, and can better cope with the current situation of farm labor shortage." Li Chao said.

▲Monitoring equipment deployed in the field by Zoomlion Smart Agriculture

      Today in Gangzhongping Village, the picture of high-standard farmland with "fields in blocks, roads connected, canals linked, irrigation during droughts and drainage during floods" is gradually unfolding, and the beautiful vision of getting rich by growing grain is becoming a reality.