HOW CHINA IS USING AI AS A MASTERKEY TO REVOLUTIONALIZE IT’S AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

Since ancient times China has been an agricultural oriented country with a wide production range of agricultural products. But according to figures from the world bank and the national bureau of statistics,

in 2016,china’s cultivated land area was more than 135 million hectares thus accounting to mora than

8% of the global total cultivated land. Moreover the county’s population is is more than 1.38billion thus

accounting to 19% of the world’s total population thus reducing the farmland quality. Moreover china

has always been often affected by natural disasters thus causing annual crop damage of nearly 20000

hectares and grain production losses of 30-40 billion kilograms. Due to these circumstances, china has

been motivated over the years to develop some of the most sophisticated technological methods to

avoid it’s agricultural sector from falling to it’s knees.

Though the AI is still in it’s early stages in the Chinese agricultural sector, it has shown some promising

potentials to revolutionalize the country’s agricultural sector over the recent years and helping the

country build a solid foundation to support it’s agricultural sector.

Having some of the biggest AI companies, such as DJI, Ubtech Robotics, cloud walk just to mention a

few, China had a clear idea of their goals before they got started and had a right approach on how to use

AI to take the agricultural sector to another level.

Some promising application of AI in the Chinese agricultural sector are;

Yielding prediction. By analyzing data from weather sensors ,satellite imagery and other source

providing farmers with real time insights on how their crops are doing and this information helps

farmers make decisions about when to plant, how to irrigate, and what chemicals to use on their crops

in particular time. Also it has helped farmers have real time weather information which has enabled

them make judgements early enough.

Early disease detection and automated machine learning for crop monitoring.AI has significantly helped

farmers detect changes in their crops and also diseases which may potentially be a threat to the crops

but by early detection, farmers are able to control it before further damage.

Robotic systems for precision farming. Robots equipped with sensors and AI alogarithms are used for

precision farming i.e crop mapping, yield analysis and weed control. Agricultural drones powered with

AI sensors are also used to perform a similar function.

Automated greenhouse system powered sensors provide the ideal environment for plants,

automatically adjusting factors like temperature, humidity, light, light and nutrients.

Soil mapping. AI powered are used to map soil properties such as nutrients, moisture contents and PH

levels.

Irrigation systems.AI powered irrigation systems automatically adjust the amount of water based on

data from weather sensors and plant sensors. This information helps farmers reduce water usage while

maintaining or improving crop yield.

Fertilizer recommendations.AI powered decision support systems can provide farmers with personalized

recommendations for fertilizer application based on data from field trials, lab test and remote sensing.

The applications above which are just a drop in the ocean compared to the endless list of AI implication

in the chinese agricultural sector,it is clear that China is investing heavily to revolutionalize and evolve

the agricultural sector which has helped them reduce imputs, optimize irrigation, fertilizers and tillage

properties and also saved them from the labour cost thus enabling the production rate to be high and

also offer threat competition to other countries which are also known to be mega in the agricultural

sector.