China: Agricultural machinery and equipment make up for shortcomings and make further progress

28 December 2023, China: In 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, will mobilize all parties to focus on large-scale high-horsepower machinery that is urgently needed for agricultural production, small machinery suitable for hilly and mountainous areas, and shortcomings in the field of intelligence, and focus on research and development, accelerate front-line deployment and application, and continue to promote the work of making up for shortcomings in agricultural machinery equipment.

Since this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has promoted the establishment of a database of agricultural machinery equipment industries and agricultural machinery enterprises with an output value of over 100 million yuan in various provinces. Steady implementation of special projects on hilly agricultural machinery and agricultural robots, and jointly with the Ministry of Finance to carry out integrated pilot projects for the R&D, manufacturing, promotion and application of agricultural machinery equipment in nine provinces. Actively promote the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission to increase the establishment of agricultural machinery equipment research and development projects.

Nine new fully mechanized scientific research bases have been built, including Southwest Corn and East China Traditional Chinese Medicine, to continuously improve R&D and innovation capabilities. Support Heilongjiang and Zhejiang to collaborate with Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, and Jiangsu to collaborate with Gansu to build “one large and one small” (large, high-horsepower machinery and small machinery suitable for hilly and mountainous areas) agricultural machinery equipment promotion and application pilot areas, and select and build a new batch of 50 agricultural machinery equipment in hilly and mountainous areas. The application base provides a performance optimization and verification demonstration platform for innovative agricultural machinery products and accelerates the industrialization process. Establish a regular communication mechanism with departments such as industry and information technology, development and reform, finance, and science and technology. Each department will focus on making up for shortcomings and implement precise policies to form a synergy. The provinces are closely linked, and 10 provinces including Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia have successively issued relevant policy documents to intensify the development of the agricultural machinery equipment industry.

So far, the work of making up for shortcomings in agricultural machinery and equipment has achieved important stage results. A batch of iconic complete machines and equipment were successfully developed and applied. In terms of “one big” (large high-horsepower machinery), 240-horsepower and 320-horsepower continuously variable speed tractors are mass-produced to fill the market gap; a 700-horsepower green fodder harvester and a 18kg/s feed rate grain combine harvester have completed prototype trial production; pneumatic type electrically driven high-speed precision seeders, 400-horsepower green fodder harvesters, and large square balers have been industrialized; sales of domestic brands such as 6-row baling cotton pickers, high-speed rice transplanters, and 12kg/s feed grain combine harvesters accounting for more than 50%, accelerating the substitution of similar foreign products.

In terms of “small machines” (small machinery suitable for hilly and mountainous areas), a variety of hilly mountain tractors with slopes of 6-15 degrees, ratoon rice harvesters, white radish harvesters, and rhizome Chinese herbal medicine harvesters have achieved product finalization; mountain corn seeders have achieved breakthroughs , suitable for use in southwestern mountainous areas; large-scale mass production of rapeseed transplanters, special seeders for strip compound planting, and special headers for soybeans, which strongly support the increase in soybean oil production capacity; mountain rail transporters are widely used in fruit production in Hubei, Chongqing, Zhejiang and other provinces. The number of (tea) gardens is close to 50,000 units, which has significantly reduced labor intensity. Some key areas in hilly and mountainous areas have begun to make the leap from “inorganic usability” to “good machine use”. We have successfully developed intelligent equipment such as chick beak trimming robots, facility inspection robots, and facility plant protection robots, breaking the monopoly of foreign countries. The number of Beidou terminal agricultural machinery installed nationwide has reached 2.2 million, and the operating efficiency and accuracy have reached the international advanced level. The total number of plant protection drones exceeds 200,000, and the annual operating area exceeds 2.1 billion acres, which greatly improves operating efficiency and achieves pesticide reduction and efficiency improvement.

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