Chinese agricultural entrepreneur Wang Shoubo leads a team to export vegetable greenhouse technology to 46 countries

Having worked in the agricultural field for 26 years, Wang Shobo is most proud of the fact that his team has allowed vegetables to grow in the desert.

In summer, the surface temperature in the desert areas of Turkmenistan reaches a maximum of 50 degrees Celsius, and the temperature difference between day and night reaches 30 degrees Celsius. Wang Shobo and his construction team spent nearly a year building an improved tomato greenhouse of 10,000 square meters there. From there, this post-80s agricultural entrepreneur from Shouguang, Shandong Province, took Chinese vegetable greenhouses "out to sea" and "planted" greenhouses on land in 46 countries.

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Pakistan... The whiteboard in Wang Shoubo's office is marked with the number of new greenhouses in different countries. On the wall beside it is a schematic diagram of the "One Belt, One Road" transportation channel, with dense markings.

Once, a Kazakh farmer asked him curiously what the carrots grown in the greenhouse looked like. "The carrots we grow are the same length." Wang Shoubo explained with gestures and showed the photos stored on his mobile phone.

"Absolutely impossible, this must be staged!" The other party didn't believe it.

Soon after, at the invitation of Wang Shoubo, the local state government organized seven major vegetable growers to visit Shouguang. After pulling out the neatly sized carrots with his own hands, the farmer who was initially skeptical gave a thumbs up.

Wang Shoubo is a veteran. When he returned to his hometown in 2000, most greenhouses used steel wires and bamboo poles. Not only were the sheds small, but the shed membranes were also made of ordinary plastic films. The insulation relied on thick straw curtains. When the temperature was high, the shed membranes were opened with hands for ventilation.

"In the past, the most laborious thing was to pull up the straw curtain. Every morning when the sun came out, two people had to work together to pull up the straw curtain, and in the evening when the sun set, it took more than an hour to pull up the straw curtain. It was all manual labor, and I was so tired that I couldn't straighten my waist." Wang Shobo said that in today's greenhouses, roller blind machines are standard equipment. You can sit in the room and press a button, and the insulation quilt of the entire shed can be rolled up in 10 minutes. There are also integrated water and fertilizer systems and environmental control systems... "One person can easily manage 10 acres of land."

The decision to expand overseas business was made in 2016. In December 2015, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was established to deeply align with the Belt and Road Initiative and promote sustainable economic development in Asia through investment in infrastructure and other productive fields. Its investment areas include agricultural infrastructure.

At that time, there were only a few colleagues who "went overseas". Wang Shoubo's biggest feeling was that "working alone, he had to step through all the pitfalls by himself."

When a greenhouse goes overseas, it is not only necessary to understand the customer's needs, but also to study the local climate conditions - the minimum temperature in winter, the maximum temperature in summer, the length of sunlight throughout the year, the maximum wind speed, the thickness of snow, the annual precipitation... Finally, a tailor-made plan is designed based on the local climate conditions and the growth needs of the vegetables grown by the customer. What equipment is needed for the greenhouse, how powerful the heating equipment should be, what method should be used for the cooling system, how to design the ventilation, how to install the spray system, and what configuration should be used for water and fertilizer irrigation. Every parameter must be accurately calculated.

The heat in the Gobi desert in the Middle East is unbearable, and the surface temperature exceeds 60 degrees Celsius. Wang Shoubo's team designed a full shading system, equipped with spray cooling equipment, to solve the problem of high-temperature planting; Eastern European countries have long winters and heavy snow, so the team upgraded high-strength steel structures to strengthen cold resistance, pressure resistance, and thermal insulation properties to adapt to extremely cold and frozen soil environments; in the African continent, there are two distinct seasons of drought and rain, and heavy rains are concentrated. The team reinforced the foundation and optimized the drainage system to allow the greenhouse to calmly cope with extreme weather and ensure stable production and increased income.

High-end planting greenhouses in the United States, million-square-meter tomato bases in Uzbekistan, sunshade greenhouses for people's livelihood in Guinea, and full-industry chain industrial parks in Belarus...their greenhouses are being used in more and more places.

In the Guinea mining area, the first batch of cucumber greenhouses built by Wang Shobo for local people ushered in a bumper harvest, with green and plump cucumbers covered with vines. Looking at the unprecedented high yield in this land, a local government official sighed with emotion: "Other foreign companies only focus on the minerals here. Only the Chinese team not only brings engineering construction, but also keeps mature vegetable growing technology in the local area and teaches the people, making hope grow in the barren land."

New Zealand Xianmeijian Farm’s 60,000-square-meter hydroponic plant factory project is New Zealand’s top-scale vegetable hydroponic planting base. When the greenhouse was installed in 2020, it coincided with the global outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic. The equipment had arrived at the New Zealand port, but the technicians were unable to leave the country, visas were suspended, and flights were suspended. Everyone thought this project was going to be ruined, so Wang Shoubo came up with a solution - video remote guidance for installation.

He led his team to build an identical model shed in the factory in Shouguang. Engineers assemble it here, and local New Zealand workers follow the assembly step by step while watching the video. There is a 4-hour time difference, so the team works shifts according to the local time in New Zealand. In this way, through remote guidance, the 60,000-square-meter greenhouse was installed bit by bit. After the project was put into operation, the yield of the lettuce, spinach and herbs grown was not only three times higher than that of traditional local cultivation, but also had zero pesticide residues and only one-tenth of the water consumption of traditional cultivation, reaching the highest standard of New Zealand's organic certification.

In March 2025, the project won the highest award in the Farm Environment Auckland region. The judges' evaluation was "continuous learning, use of data science in agriculture, and successful localization of international technology."

In the past 10 years, the "territory" covered by greenhouses has expanded, and the team's voice has also increased.

Zhang Libo, a post-90s employee of the company who has been stationed abroad for many years, remembers that when we first went overseas, foreign parties did not believe that Chinese greenhouses could adapt to the extreme local climate and "just regarded us as an ordinary engineering team." From the hinterland of Central Asia to the deserts of the Middle East, from the European plains to the land of Africa, the ice of prejudice is melting little by little, and more and more projects are adopting Chinese technology and planting plans.

Having traveled with government delegations many times, Wang Shoubo is very proud that every time he is introduced as a “representative of Chinese vegetable greenhouse enterprises,” foreign participants always cast concerned glances.

In key cooperation countries such as Belarus and Kazakhstan, foreign parties took the initiative to connect with embassies and delegations abroad, and listed the Shouguang greenhouse project as a key local agricultural upgrading project, giving priority to docking and implementation. Starting in 2026, Wang Shoubo began to rent land in Kazakhstan to build a standardized demonstration base of 100 acres, completely replicating Shouguang's standards for planting, management and maintenance, and water and fertilizer integration. The high-yield results of seeing is believing make Chinese technology and Chinese standards deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

In Wang Shoubo's mind, "going overseas" in agriculture has never been a simple product output - the surface layer is greenhouse equipment, the middle layer is planting technology, and the deep layer is the transmission of Chinese standards and Chinese agricultural concepts.

To this end, they have cooperated with universities to form a doctoral research team to strengthen innovation in facility agriculture. So far, they have held dozens of patents and software copyrights to support the implementation of projects with scientific research strength. Today, more than 60% of Wang Shoubo's company's revenue comes from overseas. This team of new farmers, with an average age of 35, continues to work on wider fields.

China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xing Ting Source: China Youth Daily