The story appears on

Page B2

September 24, 2018

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeDistrictJiading

Machines taking over in district鈥檚 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.

鈥淢ore agricultural machines have started operating in the field since early 1990s,鈥 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鈥檛 have enough hands, farmers can borrow from the corporation.

A helping hand

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

鈥淚t would be better if we have machines for fertilizing and spreading pesticide,鈥 said Wang Caihua, another machine operator.

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

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


 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend