indianbanksassociation Chapter 237 Smart Agriculture
Chapter 237 Smart Agriculture
The email from the Department of Agriculture didn't come out of nowhere.
Back in the drone era, 402's unmanned system was piloted at Mincheng Fengyuan Agriculture. At that time, Ma Hao and his team had just completed the first round of field tests. The data from the 500-mu experimental field was interesting to everyone, but no one expected that three years later, those 500 mu would become an intelligent agricultural network covering 30 million mu in seven provinces.
Ma Hao stood in front of the reporting platform and projected the core data of 30 million mu onto the screen.
Pesticide use decreased by 37%. Fertilizer utilization increased by 28%. Yield per acre increased by 14%.
These three figures, taken individually, are not particularly striking. Improvements in agriculture are usually measured in percentage points; an increase of one or two percentage points annually is considered technological progress. However, when these three figures appeared simultaneously on a table, covering an area of 30 million mu (approximately 2.6 million hectares), the reaction in the meeting room was not surprise, but silence.
The most striking data is the water resource data. Precision irrigation systems have reduced agricultural water use by 42 percent.
Forty-two percent. What does this figure mean? China is one of the countries with the most scarce water resources per capita in the world, with agricultural water use accounting for more than 60 percent of total water consumption. The amount of water saved annually from 30 million mu of land is equivalent to the volume of ten West Lakes.
Ma Hao put down his laser pointer, looked at the crowd below the stage, and said something he had prepared for a long time: "We used to call this system smart agriculture. Now I think we should change the name. This isn't about farming; it's about using computing power to replace water."
After the Unmanned Systems Business Unit finished its presentation, Han Lu added a set of data on the business model.
Of the 30 million mu (approximately 2 million hectares) covered, 6 million mu (approximately 4 million hectares) are covered directly through equipment service contracts with 402, while the remaining 24 million mu (approximately 16.7 million hectares) are covered indirectly through agricultural cooperatives and agricultural technology extension stations in various provinces. For the directly contracted portion, 402 charges an annual service fee per mu (approximately 0.067 hectares), which has decreased from the initial 300 yuan to the current 180 yuan per mu due to rapidly declining marginal costs. For the indirectly covered portion, local governments fund the equipment purchase, while 402 is responsible for technical support and system maintenance.
Once this business model is proven successful, the annual service revenue from 30 million mu (approximately 2 million hectares) will stabilize at around 1.2 billion RMB. While not 402's largest source of income, it is stable and has virtually no cancellation rate. Once farmland is connected to precision irrigation and drone inspection systems, farmers will no longer be able to return to the old ways of relying on experience for irrigation and depending on the weather.
Satellite remote sensing is another asset that is not reflected in business reports but has extremely high strategic value.
The agricultural sensors installed on the Tianqiong constellation can analyze crop growth with a resolution of 0.5 meters. Which plots of land are lacking water, which are infested with pests, and which are deficient in which trace elements are all marked on a digital map in real time. This system can not only detect existing pests and diseases, but also predict potential risks two weeks in advance based on the spectral characteristics of crop leaves, giving farmers sufficient time to respond.
This capability is currently offered free of charge as a basic service of the Tianqiong Constellation to regions already connected to the smart agriculture system, without any separate fee. However, Zuo Cheng is well aware that the long-term value of this data far exceeds the service fee itself. It is the eye of the entire smart agriculture system; without this eye, precision irrigation and drone-based plant protection are like the blind men and the elephant.
In his report, Ma Hao presented a specific case. A paddy field in Heilongjiang was flagged as a nitrogen-deficient risk area by the system in early June. After receiving the warning, the local agricultural technology station conducted soil testing, confirmed the system's assessment, and promptly applied nitrogen fertilizer. By harvest time, the yield per mu (a Chinese unit of area, approximately 0.067 hectares) in this paddy field was 21% higher than similar plots in the surrounding area that were not connected to the system. This 21% yield difference came from a two-week lead time.
An agricultural expert involved in the pilot program made a statement at the review meeting that was recorded: "In the past, farmers depended on the weather for their livelihood; now, the weather is in control of how the land is cultivated."
Han Lu later used this sentence as the title of her promotional copy, and it worked surprisingly well.
The afternoon meeting focused on nationwide promotion.
The Ministry of Agriculture plans to incorporate the 402 smart agriculture system into the national high-standard farmland construction standards and include it in the implementation list for the last three years of the 14th Five-Year Plan. The goal for its promotion over the next five years is to cover one billion mu (approximately 66.7 million hectares) of high-standard farmland.
One billion mu. This figure is more than three times that of thirty million mu. Ma Hao did the math: if calculated based on current technical parameters, once one billion mu are all connected, it can save the country more than 20 billion cubic meters of agricultural water annually. This figure is equivalent to twice the annual water transfer volume of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.
"It's not about replacing the South-to-North Water Diversion Project," Ma Hao added during his report. "Water conservation reduces demand at the source, while water diversion increases supply from outside. Only by pursuing both paths simultaneously can we succeed."
Zuo Cheng gave three points of advice to the working group from the Ministry of Agriculture.
First, the rollout should not be rushed. Data from the three pilot provinces—Fujian, Henan, and Heilongjiang—should be run for another full agricultural season to ensure the system performs well under different climatic conditions and crop varieties. Second, the localization rate of the equipment must be over 90%. Core chips should be domestically developed (e.g., 402), and sensor modules should be sourced from domestic suppliers. We cannot afford to be held back at any stage. Third, farmer training is more important than technology deployment. Even the best system is useless if farmers don't know how to use it.
After the meeting, a clip of a television interview with an elderly farmer from Mincheng circulated on social media.
He stood by his family's rice paddy and said something to the camera. There was no script, no rehearsal; it was just something he said off the cuff.
"I've been farming for forty years. Before, I was battling the elements with a hoe; now I'm checking data on my phone. Having lived for over sixty years, this is the first time I've felt that farming is a respectable thing."
Han Lu forwarded the video to Zuo Cheng, adding the comment: "This video has just over ten million views."
Zuo Cheng looked at it once, then again. He put down his phone, looked out the window, and said nothing.
That evening, Zuo Cheng and Yu Ying sat on the rooftop for a while.
Yu Ying looked towards the distant direction of the space photovoltaic receiving station. The slowly rotating reflector on the antenna reflected faint starlight in the night sky, like a sunflower growing on Earth, forever facing the sun in space.
"We've saved on groundwater," she said. "And on top of that, energy from the sky."
Zuo Cheng followed her gaze but didn't answer. But in his mind, he was doing something else. Smart agriculture saves 42% of water; if space photovoltaics could truly achieve large-scale grid connection, the savings wouldn't just be in energy costs, but a complete restructuring of the energy chain. Water and energy—one underground, the other in the sky. What 402 is doing is reconnecting every layer of Earth's resources to a grid.