"By using mobile vertical hanging cultivation racks, we can fully utilize the 70 cm aisle space inside the container to increase the actual planting area", "by channelling waste heat from plant lights into integrated pipelines through fast-flowing liquid, we can achieve reverse temperature regulation in winter and summer, reducing energy consumption", "using five-sided heat preserved, double-sided colour steel coils, and high-efficiency refrigeration units, we expect to lower overall energy consumption by 25%"…

On September 20th, the finals of the fourth PDD Smart Agriculture Competition kicked off in Shanghai. During the presentation session of their transformed containers, the six finalist teams consistently emphasized keywords including energy saving, efficiency, and innovation to showcase their novel ideas and commercial value. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Representation in China provided technical support for the competition.

To promote the development of new quality productive forces in agriculture, PDD has been organizing the Smart Agriculture Competition since 2020, holding its fourth edition this year. Building on last year's focus on container plant factory cultivation, this year's competition handed over the design and transformation of plant factories to the teams themselves, exploring the more advanced possibilities of this facility agriculture "high-level version."

Since the recruitment began at the end of March, 16 teams comprising 142 young experts from various disciplines both domestically and internationally have competed against each other, and 6 of them advanced to the finals. Over the past over 40 days, the six teams have completed the container transformation and are now entering the core phase of artificial intelligence-based cultivation.

"Plant factories represent the forefront of agricultural digitalization and are a vibrant field where high-tech agricultural innovations are applied," said Zhao Chunjiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director and chief expert of the National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture. He believes the competition gathers global young agricultural innovation talents and thriving agricultural tech companies, fostering frontier technology exchanges and innovation, and promoting the practical application and dissemination of a series of scientific research achievements. This injects new momentum into increasing farmers' income and industrial development.

Sheikh Ahaduzzaman, Representative ad interim of the FAO Representation in China, stated that the competition offers a platform that brings together leading scientists and farmers, allowing participants to learn how to tackle challenges and absorb innovative technologies. This can lead to the formation of more economical, practical, and efficient technological models and solutions." We hope this competition will foster technical exchanges, inspire innovation, and drive agricultural development and transformation, attracting more young talents to engage in agricultural innovation and technological transformation."

INNOVATION MOMENTS

When Qin Chuhan, a young man born in 1990s, first transformed a plant factory by hand eight years ago, he bought wood at a construction market, sawed it into shape, wrapped it in paper bags, dug holes in the bottom, and placed it in a water tank, thus completing a simple "tomato factory". As a computer science student at the time, farming was his hobby.

Starting from his interest, Qin Chuhan soon switched career to coding farming, applying artificial intelligence technology to traditional agriculture. On 20 September, at the competition site, the innovative machinery led by Qin’s "MOQUAN" team caught everyone's attention—a giant installation measuring 5 meters in length and over 2.4 meters in height. At least four sets of pulleys with a radius of about 30 cm drive hinges, slowly rotating a food-grade stainless steel planting trough over two meters long.

This rotating cultivation rack, with its western technological style, is not often seen in China. He Dongxian, a professor at China Agricultural University and one of the judges of the competition, who has studied plant factories for many years, acknowledged, "this team's innovation lies in the fusion of Eastern and Western technologies."

The machinery, from large-scale structural design to small pulley components, embodies the team's ingenuity. "In terms of space utilization, climate consistency, and harvesting convenience, the rotating cultivation rack has its own advantages," said Qin Chuhan. Due to dietary habits and economic-cultural differences, the design concepts of plant factories in Europe and America differ significantly from those in China. "Domestic plant factory teams are scattered across the country; through the competition, everyone gathers to exchange ideas face-to-face, which is very meaningful. We bring back the ideas and creativity accumulated during our studies and entrepreneurial experiences abroad to this competition, hoping to inspire more innovations."

This competition, aimed at tackling the challenges of plant factory industry development, serves as a stage to encourage innovation and spark potential. The core of the contest lies in utilizing cutting-edge technology and designing innovative solutions to challenge the limits of container farming in the vertical agriculture track.

As the champion of the previous competition, the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences Team debated whether to take more significant steps in innovation. Eventually, they changed their design to implement a six-layer mobile vertical hanging cultivation rack. From the seedling stage to the growth stage, these racks gradually expand, leaving 20 cm of space for each lettuce plant, allowing for up to 1600 lettuces in the entire space, making it the most "ambitious" planting plan among the six teams.

"If we took a conservative approach, we could create a conventional, immobile plant factory, but where's the challenge in that?" said Miao Chen, leader of the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences team." The competition is an opportunity to exchange research technologies and bring innovative outcomes to life. Aiming to win again, we must boldly create."

The excellent ideas emerging from the competition are not limited to hardware modifications. The "Green Leaf Pioneers", co-established by the National Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Agricultural Equipment and the Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station, comprises 11 members, all holding Ph.D. degrees. In the transformation phase, they innovatively eliminated the independent equipment room inside the container, increasing the planting area to 87.9%. In the planting phase, recognizing that smartphones have become new farming tools today, they decided to use the cameras inside the container to live stream the cultivation process.

"Through live streaming, we can showcase the cutting-edge agricultural technologies inside the container in real-time. During the process, we answer viewers' questions and disseminate agricultural knowledge, fostering public interest and support for agriculture," said Yu Jingxin, executive leader of the "Green Leaf Pioneers". "Watching a lettuce grow slowly is also a healing process for the mind."

GROWING WITH THE COMPETITION

Yang Hao of the "Cyber Farmers" is a familiar face in this competition, but this year he has a new role. Unanimously elected by his teammates, he has become the new team leader. "The four editions of the competition have spanned my entire Ph.D. journey, from data collection and calculation under the guidance of senior colleagues to now leading my team. It has been the driving force behind my doctoral research."

Since their first participation in 2020, the "Cyber Farmers", known for their consistent high performances, has adhered to the principle of "Dialogue with Plants, Produce with Efficiency". The core principle involves monitoring CO₂ and water consumption within the container to gauge the suitability of the environment for plant growth, complemented by machine vision to assess plant health and adjust the environment accordingly. This approach has been carried forward in the current competition, with the incorporation of more innovative environmental technologies.

For instance, to achieve higher yield, better quality and lower cost, they have embedded air conditioning within the container walls and connected it to an external cooling system. When the outdoor temperature is at least 5 degrees Celsius lower than indoors, the system automatically introduces external cool air for temperature control, thereby reducing the air conditioning load and cutting energy consumption.

The "Unyielding Growth" team from the previous competition has also evolved, forming the "Shimo Siyuan" team for the new season. Centred around faculty and students from Shanghai Jiaotong University, this team boasts a strong engineering background and excels in intelligent energy management. "In the last competition, we learned a lot about plant physiological models from other teams. This time, we aim to continue gaining practical experience, with the future goal of creating an open-source platform that any team wishing to use plant factory technology for growing fruits and vegetables can efficiently operate," said the team leader Xiong Yuanke.

As a representative of the engineering teams, Xiong Yuanke and his team brought numerous innovative ideas to their debut in the finals, such as the combination of layered cultivation and dynamic rails, a new reflective film with an energy-saving rate of 25%-35%, coconut husk humus expected to accelerate crop growth by 60%-70%, and even plans to expose plants to music to observe the effects of specific sound waves or frequencies on nutrient absorption.

After four years of development, PDD Smart Agriculture Competition has transitioned from the exploratory phase to a stage that prioritizes practical application and industrial development. This shift has attracted some "industry-oriented" teams.

One such team, "Ye Cai Xia", hailing from Weifang of Shandong, known as "China's Vegetable Capital," made it to the finals in their first participation. According to the team leader Xie Xiaowei, since the company's establishment in 2020, they have focused on the standardized production processes for leafy herbaceous crops such as salad greens, Chinese vegetables, medicinal herbs, and synthetic biology. They have successfully implemented the plant factory model in various countries and regions.

Benefiting from their accumulated experience, the Lettuce Heroes team completed the hardware delivery for the container transformation in just 8 days, the fastest among all teams. Unlike some teams from colleges that enter the competition with the aim of maximizing yield, Xie Xiaowei places more emphasis on the friendliness towards both plants and growers. For example, they installed shading curtains for each planting unit and equipped them with dedicated air conditioning ducts, giving the crops a "five-star" living experience. Additionally, while other teams sought to simplify the equipment compartment to maximize the planting area, they designed a well-equipped and fully labelled equipment room, aiming to make it user-friendly even for novice growers.

"This competition is not a simple race. It's not just about reaching technological peaks, but also about ensuring the stability of the entire system, achieving autonomous production, lowering the planting threshold, and showcasing the commercial potential of the solutions," said Xie Xiaowei.

Promoting Research through Competition to Drive New Quality Productive Forces

"In order to transform from great agriculture to strong agriculture, intelligent equipment is bound to be a major force," said He Dongxian when looking forward to the imaginative finals. "Based on intelligent equipment, using artificial intelligence technology to revolutionize traditional agricultural production methods, plant factories are certain to be the most disruptive and important manifestation of this transformation and a typical example of breakthroughs in productivity."

Unlike traditional agriculture that relies on weather, container plant factories are unaffected by weather conditions and are equipped with a smart "brain". Operators can complete tasks like watering, fertilizing, adjusting lighting, and controlling temperature within the entire space with just a few taps.

To demonstrate the growth conditions of lettuce under different lighting and cultivation rack speeds, Qin Chuhan took out his phone and lightly tapped a few buttons on the screen. The light inside the container immediately changed from blue to purple, and the rotation speed of the cultivation rack noticeably increased. "Need it even faster?" he asked with a smile, indicating that it was all controllable with a single touch.

On the other side, the "Green Leaf Pioneers" used a combination of large and small models to monitor various environmental indicators within the container in real-time and provide adjustment recommendations. Before the typhoon hit Shanghai, the humidity was high, and the lettuce urgently needed cooling. The large model sent a "cooling reminder" to Yu Jingxin in the afternoon, and the small model quickly followed up with a prompt to "ventilate for 20 minutes." With just a click of the "confirm" button, the lettuce could cool down.

Each team that made it to the finals has its own unique artificial intelligence technology features. The technological dream of "one-click vegetable farming" is becoming a reality. Currently, FAO is actively promoting the deep integration of artificial intelligence with agricultural development, advancing high-quality agricultural modernization, accelerating agri-food systems transformation, and striving to achieve the Four Betters—Better production, Better nutrition, a Better environment, and a Better life—leaving no one behind.