Agricultural machinery operators are busy driving rice transplanters equipped with BeiDou navigation systems. As the spring plowing season is currently underway, Sanming City's Shaxian District, known as the "Hometown of Chinese Snacks" and located in the hilly areas of central Fujian, faces a persistent agricultural challenge. With nearly 60,000 residents operating snack shops outside the region, the local agricultural sector has long struggled with labor shortages and low profitability. The key question is how to ensure food security while making farming less labor-intensive and increasing farmers' incomes.
In recent years, the Shaxian District Supply and Marketing Cooperative has actively explored a new modern agricultural service model centered on Supply and Marketing Farms. By introducing intelligent equipment, green technologies, and digital management, they are integrating new quality productive forces into the entire process, from spring plowing preparations to field management, harvesting, and drying. This approach aims to solve the problems of "who will farm the land and how to farm it," gradually establishing a new, multi-point agricultural service network that covers the entire district.
The Shaxian District Supply and Marketing Cooperative partners with stronger agricultural entities, such as professional farmer cooperatives and family farms, selecting them for collaborative efforts. By consolidating agricultural resources, they guide smallholder farmers and migrant workers to transfer or entrust their land to Supply and Marketing Farms. These farms then provide comprehensive services including seedling cultivation, plowing, planting, management, harvesting, and sales. Currently, Shaxian has established several demonstration sites, such as the Yiyu Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, Xiamao Yixin Agricultural Professional Cooperative, and Fuxin Supply and Marketing Farm, using them as models to promote the effective implementation of agricultural services.
Smart Seedling Cultivation The quality of seedlings is crucial for half the success of the rice crop, making seedling cultivation the first critical step in rice production. Recently, at the intelligent seedling center of the Fuxin Supply and Marketing Farm, three automated seedling production lines were operating at full capacity. The processes of soil filling, seeding, soil covering, and spraying were completed seamlessly. Stacks of seeded trays were precisely arranged by robotic arms and sent to an adjacent darkening room for germination.
"This system can produce 1,800 standard seedling trays per hour, increasing efficiency by over 40% compared to manual labor and reducing labor costs for this step alone by 70%," said Lu Shushen, assistant to the chairman of the Fuxin Supply and Marketing Farm. Through standardized operations like precision seeding and even soil covering, not only is the quality of the seedlings improved, but the comprehensive cost per tray is also reduced by approximately 4 yuan, achieving genuine cost reduction, quality improvement, and efficiency enhancement.
Inside the adjacent intelligent greenhouse, covering more than 20 acres, rows of seedlings stood neatly arranged. Temperature and humidity sensors hung inside the greenhouse, acting like "field sentinels" to monitor environmental changes in real time. "The system can automatically open and close skylights and side windows based on the needs of the seedlings at different growth stages, enabling all-weather intelligent environmental control," Lu Shushen explained. Under precise regulation, the seedlings grow strong and uniform, with a comprehensive qualification rate consistently above 90%.
"In the past, I was always worried when growing seedlings myself—afraid of bad seeds or rotten sprouts. Now, entrusting it to the smart factory of the Supply and Marketing Farm saves worry, effort, and money!" said Ai Xiangui, a local large-scale grain grower, while inspecting the growth of the seedlings.
This spring, the intelligent seedling center at the Fuxin Supply and Marketing Farm is expected to cultivate 120,000 trays of high-quality seedlings. This will not only meet the farm's own needs for large-scale cultivation on 4,000 acres but also provide stable and reliable seedling supplies to over 50 large-scale grain growers in the surrounding area. Notably, the fully intelligent management system has shortened the overall seedling cultivation cycle by about eight days, securing valuable farming time for subsequent production. Additionally, precise management of water, fertilizer, and pesticides has achieved approximately 50% water savings and a 60% reduction in pesticide use.
On-Demand Trusteeship Faced with the practical challenges of fragmented farmland, numerous slopes, and small plots in Shaxian District, which make it difficult to utilize large machinery, the Shaxian District Supply and Marketing Cooperative has developed an effective solution through resource integration and model innovation: "Agricultural Machinery Trusteeship."
"We have integrated over 100 intelligent agricultural machines suitable for hilly terrain across the district and broken down processes like plowing, planting, management, harvesting, and drying into standardized service options. Farmers can choose on-demand, just like ordering from a menu," explained Xing Danhong, Director of the Shaxian District Supply and Marketing Cooperative. This flexible, menu-style trusteeship service allows even small-scale farmers to benefit from large-scale, professional modern agricultural machinery operations.
In a recently leveled paddy field in Xinqiao Village, Gaogiao Town, Deng Daozao, a machinery operator from the Yiyu Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, drove a rice transplanter equipped with a BeiDou navigation system back and forth. Wherever it passed, the seedlings were planted in neat, uniform rows, with row spacing errors controlled within 2 centimeters. "One such transplanter can cover over 50 acres per day, which is 15 times more efficient than manual planting. Moreover, it plants straight and at a consistent depth, which is beneficial for later management and increasing yields," Deng Daozao said.
In another paddy field not far away, aerial operations were also underway. Huang Xiaochun, a member of the Yiyu Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, skillfully operated a plant protection drone, which flew steadily along a digitally planned route, evenly spraying atomized pesticide onto the seedlings. "A single drone can cover more than 700 acres per day. Through precise variable-rate application, pesticide usage can be reduced by about 30%, and costs can be saved by approximately 20 yuan per acre," Huang Xiaochun stated. This efficient, cost-saving, and green aerial protection method is transforming traditional plant protection practices.
To date, through Supply and Marketing Farms like the Yiyu Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, the Shaxian District Supply and Marketing Cooperative has provided various agricultural machinery services covering 15,000 acre-times this spring and has managed over 4,000 acres of land under trusteeship. This effectively addresses the challenges of "who will farm the land and how to farm it," helping smallholder farmers smoothly transition to modern agriculture.
Aiding Reclamation With a significant number of rural laborers leaving to operate Shaxian snack shops, many farmlands in the countryside have been left abandoned.
The question of how to revitalize these idle fields prompted the Supply and Marketing Farms to begin exploration. In Baixikou Village, Fukou Town, the roar of rotary tillers could be heard as machinery operators from the Yiyu Agricultural Machinery Cooperative performed final precision tilling on over 40 acres of newly reclaimed land. Not long ago, this area was overgrown with weeds and left unused.
"Thanks to the District Supply and Marketing Cooperative dispatching large excavators to assist with reclamation, we were able to restore over 120 acres this year, all of which will be planted with high-quality rice," said Lu Yiqian, Chairman of the Yiyu Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, pointing to the neatly terraced fields.
Transforming abandoned land into productive fields requires systematic support. In recent years, the Shaxian District Supply and Marketing Cooperative has established a collaborative model linking the "Supply and Marketing Cooperative + Supply and Marketing Farms + Farmers." This model not only provides reclamation assistance but also extends services throughout the entire agricultural production chain, offering solid support for revitalizing land resources and ensuring food security.
In the pre-production phase, leveraging its network advantages, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative pre-allocates 4,000 kilograms of high-quality rice seeds and over 500 tons of specialized fertilizer, supplying them directly to the front lines to ensure "good seeds and good fertilizer" from the source. In the post-production phase, by promoting "harvest-and-dry-immediately" services using more than 40 drying machines across the district, they address the risks of sun-drying grain, which depends on weather conditions and poses a threat of mold, while also improving the output rate of dried grain. This ensures a seamless process from "good harvest" to "safe storage."
This comprehensive approach has yielded significant results: to date, Shaxian District has cumulatively reclaimed over 800 acres of abandoned farmland, driving large-scale rice planting to cover more than 4,000 acres, with an estimated annual output value exceeding 12 million yuan.
Service optimization and upgrading are also reflected in digital empowerment. Many farmers in Shaxian have become accustomed to booking agricultural machinery services online through dedicated WeChat mini-programs or service accounts. From plowing and transplanting to plant protection and harvesting, a simple tap on the screen places an order, with the backend responding quickly and intelligently dispatching assignments.
"From placing an order on my phone to having the machinery in the field, the fastest time has been less than two hours. It's incredibly convenient," said Qiu Canhui, a farmer who booked drone plant protection services through the online platform.
"Transitioning from 'knowing how' to farm to 'wisely' farming, and from supplying agricultural inputs to providing full-process services—this is the core path of our efforts to develop new quality productive forces in agriculture, deepen comprehensive reforms, and enhance our capacity to serve farmers," stated Xing Danhong. "Our goal is to see new technologies, equipment, models, and services take root in the fields, genuinely solving practical problems in agricultural production and promoting increased income and prosperity for farmers."
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