What future will technology create for agriculture? When planting strawberries, AI technology competed with manual planting and ultimately achieved a complete victory. When growing tomatoes, algorithms and interdisciplinary technologies allow them to bear fruit in unmanned greenhouses. Digital technology and artificial intelligence have unleashed infinite possibilities for the future of agriculture.

In the third year of the planting algorithm, the "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition" has been doing one thing - designing the future grain system. At present, at a time when the global COVID-19 epidemic is testing the resilience of the food system, it is of practical significance for big cities to plant green leafy vegetables (lettuce) with higher yield and better quality with lower energy consumption and shorter growth cycle. 
The third "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition" put the future of Urban agriculture into the container. How can urban agriculture grow more food with fewer resources? The smartest brain in the world will write its own answer to this question.

Vertical farms feed more people with fewer resources
At the end of July, Pinduoduo launched the third Donduo Agricultural Research Competition. Different from the previous two sessions, this time Pinduoduo cooperated with the Bright Home Port of Shanghai Bright Group to move the competition venue from the greenhouse base in Kunming, Yunnan to a container in Chongming, a suburb of Shanghai.

In fact, the future has arrived. Establishing an urban agricultural system in containers is not new.
In 1999, Dixon Despamir, a professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia University in the United States, hoped to use the space on the garden roof to provide food for Manhattan, New York, with a population of about 2 million. However, after calculation, he finally became pregnant. Stranded. Dixon shifted to the concept of indoor vertical farm systems in 2001, which was also the first proposal of the concept of vertical farms.

In 2009, Gu Zaifengshu, former president of Chiba University, known as the "father of modern Plant factory", put forward the concept of "using artificial lighting to build Plant factory", and defined large-scale intensive Plant factory as "artificial light source". "Plant factory" can produce high-quality vegetables without cleaning in an environment with high air tightness, high heat preservation and high sanitary level.

By 2017, students from Fengshu at Tongji University in China will begin to develop a highly intelligent container planting system. A year ago, this system was moved into the 10th China Flower Expo and showcased AI plant warehouses for the first time in China. At that time, its planting efficiency had increased to about 100 times that of ordinary field planting.

Today, with the development of modern agriculture, every small progress and breakthrough requires a long time and energy, and the core purpose of agricultural development is still very simple - how to feed all humanity with limited resources. It can be seen that since the concept of vertical farms was first proposed, people have been working hard for more than 20 years to overcome the impact of natural weather on agricultural production, hoping to reduce energy consumption, shorten growth cycles, and increase planting yields. Higher and better quality crops also make it possible to feed humans with fewer resources.

Planting algorithm in the third year: from experiential planting to digital planting
Since the first "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition" in 2020, as a new agricultural science and technology enterprise, Pinduoduo has never stopped exploring the future of agriculture. From experiential planting to digital planting, the previous two "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition" have verified that digital technology and artificial intelligence can unleash unlimited possibilities for future agriculture.

The first Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition was jointly held by China Agricultural University and Pinduoduo. The competition venue is located on the Yunnan Plateau. In the 4-month competition, top players from the global agricultural field passed the "Man Machine Competition". Planting methods suitable for localized promotion.

At the same time, the technical team needs to utilize the IoT devices, cameras, and sensors in the digital "unmanned greenhouse" to collect greenhouse planting environment and crop growth data, create an artificial intelligence planting solution, and continuously optimize the implementation of the "unmanned greenhouse". The traditional team will use rich planting experience and exquisite management skills to refine traditional "small-scale agricultural production" and challenge the artificial intelligence system of the technology team.

The second Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition was jointly sponsored by Pinduoduo, China Agricultural University and Zhejiang University. Sustainability and commercial feasibility. During the competition, the finalists from Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, the Netherlands and other places remotely controlled the intelligent greenhouse located in the competition base in Kunming, Yunnan through software, combining nutrition, computer vision and deep learning and other Precision agriculture tomato planting technologies.

The results of each competition have extended people's understanding of the future of agriculture to further places.
In the first competition, AI planted strawberries, and the average yield was 196.32% higher than that of top farmers. It won a huge victory. Artificial intelligence technology has also advanced the strawberry production season in Yunnan by more than 60 days. At the same time, the two winning teams in the finals began to explore commercial operations and successfully applied scientific research results to a wider range of fields. In the second game of 2021, the champion team also adopted remote planting, allowing a greenhouse 2200 kilometers away to harvest 12.5 kilograms of small tomatoes per square meter during the harvest period, which is much higher than that of regular greenhouse tomatoes. At that time, mature AI tomatoes were also shared with taste buds across the country through the Pinduoduo platform.

Explore low-cost localized digital agriculture solutions
In fact, from the form of on-site planting, it can be said that neither game was very avant-garde. After all, there are already some commercial companies both domestically and internationally attempting unmanned intelligent production; But from its standpoint, it has already broken away from the "face saving" project, is pragmatic and in-depth enough, and is closer to the future in terms of sustainability.

"Science and technology are changing agriculture and food production, and how to do a good job in agricultural Digital transformation is a must answer question." Zhang Zhongjun, assistant representative of FAO's representative office in China, said that FAO has developed a variety of applications, databases and platforms for countries around the world. Support the digitization of agriculture. Whether a practical, cost-effective, replicable, and communicable digital agricultural technology model and solution can be formed also makes the competition more anticipated. This will promote the development of digital agriculture For the organizers of the event, it is not just a competition, but a long-term exploration project. Intended to bring real economic value to agricultural production. After all, only Longtermism can create long-term value, and technology will eventually participate in the complex business society and live in the crowd.

The fact also proves that changes in the collective way of life of humans often come from the exploration and experimentation of a few people. Lan Ke, head of the organizing committee of the first Dodo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition, pointed out that Pinduoduo is based on improving the circulation efficiency of agricultural products in China, and also hopes to promote the deep integration of digital technology and agricultural production. Supply chain to improve overall agricultural efficiency. To enable agricultural production to produce agricultural products that are more in line with food safety, rich in nutrients, excellent in quality, and excellent in taste, and to meet the continuous upgrading needs of consumers for agricultural products.

"China's agricultural development is in a period of great change, and rapid innovation and major breakthroughs in agricultural science and technology will have a huge impact on the development of agricultural industry." Gong Yuanshi, vice president of China Agricultural University, said that the competition itself is also exploring the background of "big countries, small farmers". Low cost, localized digital agriculture solutions.

He Yong, Dean of Biological system Engineering and Food science College of Zhejiang University, said that China's agricultural industry is undergoing earth shaking changes. While more new agricultural operators are born, digital technology and cutting-edge agricultural and food technology are also emerging. Will promote traditional agriculture to a higher level. Step into leading modern agriculture. We hope to encourage more technological forces through competitions to accelerate the development of China's agriculture, "He Yong said.