China News Service, Chifeng, September 21st. Title: Inner Mongolia farmer Ma Tengjiang’s “field live broadcast room”
Author Ao Lan Shan Dezhi
In autumn, in Erkenyingzi West Village, Daming Town, Ningcheng County, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, contiguous corn fields are rolling with golden waves. A mobile phone has become a new "farm tool" that farmer Ma Tengjiang cannot live without every day. On the screen of the mobile phone, there is a line of data updated in real time; outside the screen, there are plump ears of corn on the corn stalks.
"First look at the moisture, then look at the seedling and insect conditions." Ma Tengjiang opened the smart agriculture management platform on his mobile phone, and the situation of the 260 acres of seed corn field was immediately displayed on the screen. "This is my live broadcast room in the field."
Ma Tengjiang is 67 years old this year. In the past, when autumn was busy, people would follow the crops and use their strength to grab the harvest. They would go to the fields before dawn and bend down to do heavy work. Nowadays, our own fields have not only become high-standard farmland, but are also equipped with smart agricultural facilities. Machines are in the fields and data is used to manage the fields. People do not need to stay in the fields every day. The method of farming has also changed from relying on physical strength to field inspections, data analysis and agricultural machinery dispatching.
Scenes like this have become a new daily routine for farmers in the high-standard farmland demonstration area of Ningcheng County.
Hao Dongjie, the person in charge of high-standard farmland smart agriculture technology in Ningcheng County, said that the local government will promote the construction of high-standard farmland in 2024 and integrate smart agriculture into high-standard farmland construction in 2025. With the put into use of insect status, seedling status, soil moisture monitoring and smart irrigation systems, growers used to have to go to the fields repeatedly to check farmland, but now it is much easier because of this digital management system for remote "field viewing". “We want to completely change the old model of manual field patrols, extensive planting, and empirical management and protection through remote visual management and control, automated irrigation, and intelligent early warning through mobile phones and computers.”
Ningcheng County is an important agricultural county in Inner Mongolia and a national agricultural modernization demonstration zone. It has 2.02 million acres of cultivated land, including 610,000 acres of high-standard farmland, and 10,000 acres of field smart agriculture and facility smart agriculture, benefiting more than 3,000 farmers.
The land contracted by Ma Tengjiang will start smart transformation in 2025. In order to adapt to the smart agricultural production model, his family's field plots have simultaneously completed the upgrade of the irrigation pipe network and integrated water and fertilizer pipelines. Six high-definition video cameras have been deployed in the field. Together with the access to the soil, seedling condition, and insect condition monitoring terminals in the project area, the field crop growth and irrigation operation conditions can be reported back in real time.
"In the past, when looking at crops, we mainly looked at whether they were growing well or not. Now we have to look at the data. After reading the data, we can decide what to do." For Ma Tengjiang, who has been farming for many years, the change first occurred in the matter of "looking at the land." In the past, it was common to run several times a day to catch up with weather changes or critical periods for crop growth. Now he is used to turning on his mobile phone first and looking at the soil moisture, temperature, nutrients and other data collected by field sensors in real time. "Now watering and fertilizing are more precise, and we no longer have to carry equipment and pull water tanks back and forth in the fields."
Hao Dongjie also gave an example. Now when the system detects abnormalities, it can also provide timely warnings to facilitate growers and staff to take measures.
Ma Tengjiang used insect warnings this year.
“I used to know that there were insects only when I saw leaves bitten by insects.” Ma Tengjiang recalled that after the system detected changes in the insect situation this year, he quickly arranged for drones to carry out aerial control. “It was discovered early and dealt with in a timely manner.”
"With a mobile phone, you don't have to go to the fields." From monitoring moisture levels to preventing pests, Ma Tengjiang's "field live broadcast room" on his mobile phone records the changes in a piece of land from sowing to growth, and also provides more data support for farmland management. But Ma Tengjiang said this does not mean farmers can "leave" the land. "When it's time to patrol the fields, I still have to go, but now I know where to focus, and I don't have to go around the entire field like before."
This is also the most tangible change in his opinion: in the past, people chased the ground, but now data "finds" the problem first.
At present, Ma Tengjiang’s 260 acres of seed corn are growing well. He calculated that the yield per mu this year is expected to be between 700 and 800 kilograms, "an increase of at least 150 kilograms per mu of land."
"From the county's perspective, the land of Lao Ma (Ma Tengjiang) is the epitome of high-standard farmland smart management in Ningcheng County. At present, the corn yield per mu in the demonstration area can be increased by 50 to 80 kilograms compared with before, irrigation water is saved by 20%, and the use of chemical fertilizers is reduced by 12%." He Hongxing, deputy director of the Ningcheng County Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau, said that this is the significance of high-standard farmland construction and technology-empowered agriculture to farmers. “To further improve the efficiency of farmland management, we not only need to build the fields well, but also do a good job in subsequent management and protection.”
