Post-90s: New Hope in Xinjiang Cotton Fields
In the late spring and early summer, the fields in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains are full of busy scenes, and there is hope for a bumper harvest everywhere.
With the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, a new generation of farmers born in the 1990s is active in Xinjiang. They understand agriculture, have technology, and love the countryside. With their keen Internet thinking and market-oriented thinking, they are exploring new forms of agriculture. The transformation of traditional agriculture has injected new elements and energy, and has become a new force to lead new farmers, develop new countryside, and support new agriculture.
Digitalization leads big agriculture
At the beginning of this year, Mo Xiaoyu, a post-90s Hunan girl who had never farmed before, made a bold decision to manage 500 acres of Xinjiang cotton fields by herself.
At the beginning of 2021, 28-year-old Mo Xiaoyu came to Yuli County, Xinjiang from Guangzhou to become a full-time cameraman in a cotton experimental field.
Here, she followed the team with an average age of less than 30 years old and witnessed the "technical spring ploughing" scene of the million mu of cotton fields in Yuli County.
The local application of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and digital technology to traditional farming has achieved mechanized, technological and precise operations in the whole process from sowing, field management to final picking, which also made her confident in accomplishing her goals.
The ploughing, planting and harvesting of cotton have been mechanized, and irrigation and fertilization are all done through the drip irrigation system, but the management still relies on manual labor.
How to find more efficient means?
After several experiments, Mo Xiaoyu and team engineers transformed nearly 270 water outlet piles in the experimental field into intelligent electric water outlet piles, equipped with advanced automatic fertilization and irrigation machines, and realized remote timing and fixed-point control.
"Look, we are now monitoring soil moisture, pH and other indicators in real time through sensors installed in the ground. After intelligent analysis, the system can accurately adjust the ratio of water and fertilizer, and deliver water and nutrients to the roots of cotton seedlings in time. Not only that, artificial intelligence technology It can also analyze the emergence rate, growth and disease and insect damage of cotton by identifying the images taken by remote sensing drones." Ai Haipeng, a 32-year-old team member, told reporters that exploring the unmanned farm management model can greatly reduce the Agricultural planting costs, on the other hand, can also provide a more scientific decision-making reference for field management.
"This year's goal is to produce 400 kilograms per mu, and to achieve an 80% unmanned rate in management," said Ling Lei, another young team member.
At present, the mechanization rate of cotton planting and harvesting in Yuli County has reached 97%. In the future, the development of digital empowerment of modern agriculture will be accelerated, and the transformation of agriculture from "facility" to "digitization" will be promoted.
When the warm summer wind blows through the neat cotton fields, above the green straw, drones are busy patrolling the fields.
Relying on "new agricultural tools" such as mobile phones, agricultural recorders and small weather stations, and using "new agricultural materials" such as knowledge, technology and data, more "new farmers" like Mo Xiaoyu are full of imagination and expectations, and they will make every effort to promote agriculture. Industrial transformation and upgrading.
New technology activates new kinetic energy
Just after the "May Day" holiday, under the scorching sun, Qiu Changwei, who lives in Zhuangzi Village, Wangxiang Town, Ganhezi Town, Wusu City, Tacheng City, led a team of people to control the drone to spray pesticides over the farmland.
Watching the drone swept over the farmland quickly, everyone showed a relieved smile.
In 2019, Qiu Changwei, who just graduated from the Civil Aviation Flight College of China, quickly realized the role of drones in helping agricultural development.
At that time, Qiu Changwei was thinking, how can drones be brought into the daily agricultural production of ordinary people, so that more laborers can be liberated from heavy agricultural work?
"Seeing is believing! Let everyone see the real effect." In September of the following year, Qiu Changwei was invited to demonstrate on-site the operation of defoliant spraying by drones for the heads of major cotton growers and several professional planting cooperatives in the town.
"UAV operations will not crush cotton plants, and the application of large-scale locomotives will inevitably cause certain losses to cotton production. More importantly, drone operations are not only efficient, but also save labor. 1,000 acres of cotton fields can be completed in one day. Completed." Qiu Changwei said proudly, seeing that drone operation saves time, effort and is affordable, many farmers are willing to try it, and his reputation is getting higher and higher in the local area.
Now, after the 1990s, Qiu Changwei's company has 7 aircraft, and will also introduce more efficient plant protection helicopters. The business scope includes agricultural and forestry spraying, grassland aerial sowing and even fire emergency.
Drones have become the "standard" of farmland, and there are not so many "flyers", what should we do?
Another post-90s Han Shaohua keenly captured the potential business opportunities behind the problem.
The application scenarios and market scale of plant protection drones in Xinjiang are getting bigger and bigger, "Let more young people join the ranks of pilots!"
As the general agent of a well-known domestic drone company in Changji Prefecture, Xinjiang, Han Shaohua's company started selling plant protection drones in 2019 and has sold more than 400 units so far. Most of the buyers are young people who go to the fields to start businesses , and also trained more than 700 "flyers", of which the proportion of young people is higher.
"The continuous emergence of young 'flying hands' is a microcosm of the continuous advancement of intelligence and digitization in Xinjiang's agriculture. From not understanding agricultural planting to more familiar with crop field management techniques than older farmers, they are becoming rural 'new cells', Agriculture's 'new main force'." Han Shaohua said.
New ideas revitalize old resources
Rooted in the countryside, active in thinking, and giving back to the village... Speaking of Luo Hui, a post-90s entrepreneurial young man in Qingyanghu Township, Jimsar County, Changji Prefecture, everyone will give a thumbs up. His entrepreneurial practice has influenced a large number of local people.
"The year I was admitted to the university, because of the fluctuations in the market price of agricultural products and the poor sales, the 700 mu of potatoes, sunflowers and other crops planted by my parents lost a lot. Their helpless and sad expressions made me secretly make up my mind to make a breakthrough. A piece of world." When it comes to the origin of entrepreneurship, Luo Hui is still obsessed with it.
Starting a business, where do you start?
Let’s start with opening the channel!
Since entering university, Luo Hui has been constantly exploring the sales model.
From registering a Taobao store to participating in online and offline public welfare assistance to farmers, to establishing an e-commerce company in 2015, specializing in the sale of Xinjiang Aksu Bingtang apples, Korla fragrant pears, Hetian red dates and other famous Xinjiang agricultural and sideline products, Luo Hui not only found the first bucket Jin has also accumulated a lot of experience from repeated failures.
"In order to achieve greater development, it is necessary to form a community of interests with local farmers. Internet thinking is not enough. Only by developing agricultural production and operation and exploring the value potential of the entire industry chain can we truly improve our ability to resist risks and let the villagers Agricultural products sell better," Luo Hui said.
In 2019, Luo Hui contacted an agricultural product development enterprise outside Xinjiang, and started to build its own workshop and integrated production, processing and sales.
Not only that, at the beginning of this year, he also used his own yard to set up a greenhouse for the primary processing of agricultural products, and more than 20 villagers came to help sort dried fruit products such as raisins, red dates, and walnuts every day.
"This integrated method of production, processing, packaging, distribution and sales is not restricted by OEMs, and can also create more employment opportunities. The production capacity can be adjusted according to the market demand." Luo Hui is full of confidence in this. .
Today, the total daily sales of Luohui's products on major Internet platforms exceeds 70,000 units. They also plan to build a new agricultural and sideline product processing factory in Qingyang Lake Township this year, so as to encourage more people to start businesses and find jobs.
At present, more than 11.2 million people have returned to their hometowns to start their own businesses, and more than 80% of the projects established are rural integration projects of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
These "new farmers" with knowledge, technology and business skills are upholding the feelings of rural craftsmen to improve the level and competitiveness of "three rural".
(Reporter Li Hui and Zhao Minghao)