Machines taking over in district’s rice fields

MACHINERY is releasing Jiading farmers from much of their backbreaking work.

In 2016, Jiading had completed 96.4 percent of mechanization in the rice fields and was selected as a national demonstration zone for full-mechanical work for main crops last year.

“More agricultural machines have started operating in the field since early 1990s,” said Gong Zhenqing, an agricultural machine operator. Machines have grown not only in the number, but also in the variety.

Parked at Minxin Agricultural Machinery Co are a number of automatic devices for plowing, sowing, harvesting and drying. In busy seasons, when they don’t have enough hands, farmers can borrow from the corporation.

A helping hand

“In that season each of us might need to work more than 20 hours a day,” Gong said. “With manual work, a farmer needs to spend a whole day to harvest from 1 or 667 square meters, of land, while a machine working one hour can complete six times the load.”

“It would be better if we have machines for fertilizing and spreading pesticide,” said Wang Caihua, another machine operator.

More varieties of machine are in development. According to the district’s promotion team for agricultural equipment, it is experimenting with equipment to fertilize while transplanting rice seedlings.

“Before a new tool or technology can be promoted, we need test and adapt many times,” a team member said. Operators need to be trained before driving the equipment.