FAO China and Pinduoduo host seminar on smart agriculture

Representatives from FAO, Pinduoduo, China Agricultural University, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and finalists of the Pinduoduo-organized Smart Agriculture Competition took part and presented at the webinar.

"Technology can bring real benefits to farmers and by extension to society at large," said Carlos Watson, FAO representative to China. "FAO is a big supporter of initiatives to promote smart agriculture as it can boost food security and safety."

FAO is providing technical guidance to the Smart Agriculture Competition, a precision agriculture challenge initiated by Pinduoduo with collaboration from China Agricultural University, Zhejiang University and Wageningen University and Research. Participating teams are challenged to grow tomatoes using a multidisciplinary approach to maximize yield, cost effectiveness and environmental sustainability.

The competition takes place at Pinduoduo's smart greenhouse base in Yunnan and provides a platform for the cross-pollination of ideas among the participants, 80% of whom are in their 20s.

"In the competition, our team adopted image recognition techniques to remotely monitor the strawberry plants and ensure that the greenhouse conditions are optimized for growth through our proprietary algorithms," Zheng Jianfeng, a 29-year-old researcher from China Agricultural University, said in the webinar. "Our team proved that smart farming techniques can effectively improve production efficiency."

Pinduoduo's Smart Agriculture Competition also acts as a bridge to connect agricultural scientists and digital technology experts with smallholder farmers. This helps to align those developing new technology with the people who will be using the innovation. Several teams have also gone on to offer their technology to farmers.

For instance, Zhiduomei, one of the winners of last year's competition, is now providing precision technology to one of China's largest strawberry farms. Using insights gained in the competition, Zhiduomei's system can determine the optimal growing conditions for strawberries and automate processes like irrigation, applying fertilizer and temperature control through its algorithms.

"We are happy to do our part to act as a bridge between academic research and commercial application in the area of agricultural technology," said Andre Zhu, Senior Vice President at Pinduoduo. "That's why we initiated the Smart Agriculture Competition to focus on talent development, helping them develop practical, cost-effective technology tailored to the needs of smallholder farmers."

Source: HortiBiz