China News Service, Harbin, December 13 (Reporter Wang Nina) Heilongjiang Province, China's largest granary, has another good news: in 2025, the province's total grain output will reach 164.01 billion kilograms, an increase of 13.19 billion kilograms from 2020, accounting for more than one-seventh of China's grain increase during the same period. This is equivalent to building another "over 10 billion granary" for our country in five years. Behind this heavy harvest answer sheet is the powerful "technology-driven" force that is turning the "big granary" into a "smart warehouse."

“We give full play to the power of science and technology and regard growing a variety of grains and growing good grains as our primary responsibility.” Pang Haitao, director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Heilongjiang Province, said at a press conference on the 13th that the province is deeply advancing the production increase plan and continues to increase grain production through the matching of improved seeds and methods, and the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy.

The press conference. Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of the Heilongjiang Provincial Party Committee

In 2024, Heilongjiang’s agricultural science and technology progress contribution rate reached 70.8%, 7.6 percentage points higher than the national level.

The power of technology is first reflected in the upgrade of "Iron Bull". "The comprehensive mechanization rate of farming and harvesting in the province reached 99.28%, which is 24 percentage points higher than that of the whole country, ranking first in the country." said Jiang Yiquan, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Heilongjiang Province.

Since the "14th Five-Year Plan", the province has subsidized the purchase of more than 700,000 new agricultural machinery. Today, 49,000 high-horsepower tractors, 21,000 advanced seeders and 33,000 agricultural drones are farming on black soil. Among them, the number of agricultural drones ranks the highest in China.

At the same time, Heilongjiang’s provincial smart dispatch platform is equipped with 130,000 sets of monitoring terminals to monitor key agricultural tasks in real time.

Seeds are the "chips" of agriculture. Heilongjiang has built a national soybean seed base and promoted high-performance seeders to increase the seedling retention rate from about 89% to more than 95%. Advanced agronomic technologies such as dense planting of large ridges and conservation tillage have been implemented on a large scale due to the support of high-performance agricultural machinery.

“Modern agricultural machinery and equipment are our greatest confidence to seize the farming season and increase yields.” Jiang Yiquan emphasized. At present, the province's maximum single-day operating capacity of planters exceeds 16 million acres, and harvesting machinery exceeds 20 million acres. In normal years, spring planting or autumn harvest can be completed in about 10 days.

Smart agriculture is leading the future. The province has created a national-level high-end intelligent agricultural machinery pilot zone and built 20 unmanned farms in Beidahuang Group, leading the country in agricultural intelligence.

Technology-driven technology also extends to the back-end of the industrial chain. Suiha Daqi Biomanufacturing Cluster ranks among China's advanced manufacturing clusters. Its corn deep processing capacity exceeds 28 million tons and ranks first in the country. Its milk powder output ranks first in the country. The production and sales of vitamin C and other products rank among the top in the world. It has more than 60 deep processing categories.

Pang Haitao said that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Heilongjiang will anchor the goal of building a strong agricultural province, coordinate the development of the "four agricultures" of technology, green, quality, and brand, and accelerate the cultivation of new agricultural productivity.

160 billion catties is a milestone and a new starting point. In this black soil, which accounts for one-ninth of China's arable land, science and technology is being integrated into the entire process of agricultural production with unprecedented depth and breadth, building a stable "ballast stone" for ensuring national food security and injecting strong scientific and technological power into my country's agricultural modernization.