China’s first digital citrus orchard of Alibaba Group was built in Yizhang county, Chenzhou city. Technicians from digital agriculture department of Alibaba Cloud surveyed the devices of Internet of Things and setting of cameras in the orange base of Zhanxiang Green Agriculture Co., Ltd. in Changcun Town, Chenzhou, on May 26, indicating the start of the digital orchard project.

Alibaba Group, Isoftstone, Hunan Agricultural University, Sansheng Agriculture and Zhanxiang Agriculture signed an agreement on May 19 to establish Zhanxiang Digital Orchard Project of Alibaba Cloud. A digital farm management system will be set up to build a full life circle model for crops' planting and provide standardized, intelligent and fine decision making aid on planting, helping realize visualization of the whole process from production to consumption as well as coordination of the production and marketing of agricultural products.

“We prepare to collect preliminary basic data for the system, place the devices of Internet of Things and train the directors and technicians of the bases. All the devices and systems will be put in use in June after finishing the installation and setting of the devices as well as testing of the system,” said Tan Jing, director of the project.

In recent years, Yizhang county has prioritized the development of its orange industry and expanded the planting area of orange, making it one of the pillar industries of agriculture in the county. At present, there are over 45,467 acres of land planted with orange trees, with an output of 196,000 tons, and the output value exceeds 1 billion. Besides, as the largest fruit planting enterprise in Hunan, Zhanxiang Green Agriculture Co., Ltd has built 9 orange bases, with the planting area reaching over 2,635 acres and more than 1,976 acres of orange trees giving fruits. In 2020, the company produced 3.1 million kg of orange, worth more than 50 million yuan.

Wang Haobo, general manager of Zhanxiang Green Agriculture Co., Ltd. said that with the rapid development of the company, more and more problems in the management of the orange bases have arisen. Therefore, the company decided to build a digital farm project after plenty of investigation, aiming to lower the cost, improve the quality, increase production and efficiency while solving the problems.

On the signing ceremony, one director of Alibaba Cloud said that based on the Internet and digital information technology, the digital department of Alibaba Cloud plans to establish a digital management system for the digital orchard project of Zhanxiang Green Agriculture Co., Ltd., which will improve its management and make the whole process of orange planting visible, manageable, controllable and traceable. In this way, higher quality oranges will be produced, making agricultural products the next best-selling commodities.

“Rural revitalization is underpinned by thriving business and through construction of the digital orchard project, Yizhang may see a transformation of its industry from traditional agriculture to digital and intelligent agriculture, thus driving the development of the citrus industry in Hunan,” Li Dazhi, director of Changsha Branch of the national citrus improvement center said.