In southwestern Shandong province, Juye county is bolstering smart agriculture in a bid to make local field management more scientific and technological.

In recent years, Juye has sped up building high standard farmlands, and promoted the integration of "internet +" with cloud information technology and agricultural production, said Han Jiliang, a researcher of agricultural technology promotion at Juye County Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

This has largely improved the content of agricultural science and technology and made agricultural production "easier" and "more scientific," he said.

In the fields of Houxu village in Dongguantun town, farmer Xu Zhengkun is using an intelligent farmland management platform to accurately manage his farmland through data interpretation.

Real time monitoring data transmission of soil moisture, pests and diseases, rainfall and soil enables Xu to view all of these data on his mobile phone with one click.

Smart farmland management can bring high yield and efficiency, allowing farmers to see that technology is a primary productive force, said Han.

"In the past, we used to rely on experience to cultivate our land. Now, since the establishment of the monitoring stations, the data have been interpreted, and the soil moisture and insect conditions can be examined in all aspects. With that, we can respond timely," Xu said, noting that "each mu (0.06 hectare) of our land can increase production by about 300 kilograms, and we can sell the crops to the market for about 500 yuan ($70.4)."

In the past, local farming relied on experience, but now it depends on data, Han noted, adding that the application of the smart agricultural big data platform has effectively solved the problem of large-scale farm management for farmers.

"We have established 12 such 'field stewards', benefiting 40,000 to 50,000 people in more than 100 villages," Han said, stressing that "in the next step, we will establish more smart platforms to let such smart platforms reach thousands of households, and let the local people get more benefits."

As a major crop-producing province, Shandong netted a total grain output of 56.553 million metric tons in 2023, a record high and ranking third in the country, said Wang Jingdong, deputy director of Shandong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

He noted that in the first half of this year, the province's total grain output reached 27.165 million tons, an increase of 1.6 percent year-on-year.

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