Chongzuo: Digital Intelligence Empowers "Sweet Industry" to Create New Heights in Smart Sugarcane Agriculture

Across the vast lands of Chongzuo, Guangxi, an agricultural revolution driven by digital intelligence is quietly taking shape. On March 26th, at the Jiuyanghe sugarcane planting base in Quli Town, a magnificent panorama of modern agriculture unfolded: tractors, precisely guided by Beidou navigation, traversed the fields, while smart irrigation systems simultaneously operated. A comprehensive array of intelligent agricultural machinery worked in concert, painting a picture of technology-enabled, efficient, and orderly spring plowing. Chongzuo City, known as China's "Sugar Capital," has in recent years actively leveraged its industrial advantages, employing digital intelligence to empower the transformation and upgrading of its traditional sugarcane industry. By establishing new heights in smart sugarcane agriculture, Chongzuo has forged a high-quality development path that revitalizes agriculture through technology and enriches farmers through industry. The city adheres to a development philosophy of "planting based on harvest, full-process adaptation," effectively integrating the strengths of government, sugar enterprises, technology companies, and sugarcane farmers to collectively advance the construction of smart farms and digital sugarcane fields. Currently, the application area for smart sugarcane agriculture in Chongzuo City has reached 14,000 mu. Specifically, Pan Sugar Technology in Xinhe Town, Jiangzhou District, covers 8,000 mu; Yixing Company in Luobai Township, 3,000 mu; and Jiuyanghe base in Quli Town, Fusui County, 3,000 mu, all achieving full coverage with smart irrigation systems. Data indicates that, compared to traditional planting methods, smart irrigation technology has significantly boosted agricultural efficiency: water savings can reach 30%, fertilizer savings 15%–25%, water and fertilizer efficiency increased by 200%, and both agricultural machinery efficiency and sugarcane yield per mu improved by 10%–20%. This translates to an average income increase of 700–1000 yuan per mu, with the demonstrative and带动效应 (driving effect) becoming increasingly prominent. Throughout this process, Chongzuo has established a multi-party collaborative working framework. Government departments proactively set up platforms, issued special support policies, integrated project funds to improve infrastructure, and established multi-party linkage mechanisms. Sugar enterprises actively played their part by implementing order-based procurement, mechanized harvesting services, and production guarantees, providing solid assurance for sugarcane farmers. Technology companies, leveraging their technical advantages, built digital management and control platforms, promoting advanced technologies such as IoT monitoring, smart water-fertilizer integration, drone plant protection, and Beidou navigation seeding. Sugarcane farmers also actively participated in standardized planting, receiving technical guidance throughout the process, truly achieving "worry-free planting, meticulous management, and efficient harvesting." Through these collaborative efforts, Chongzuo's digital sugarcane fields have achieved intelligent management and control across the entire chain of cultivation, planting, management, and harvesting. This has effectively solved the challenge of "machinery not suitable for land, and land not suitable for machinery" in hilly sugarcane areas, significantly enhancing production efficiency and sugarcane quality, and injecting new vitality into the transformation and upgrading of traditional agriculture. Currently, Chongzuo is accelerating the promotion and application of the "Didi Agricultural Machinery" platform, aiming to integrate agricultural machinery resources city-wide. This initiative precisely addresses the pain points of farmers seeking help, operators finding work, and production needing machinery, making "Didi Agricultural Machinery" a "smart housekeeper" in the fields. This continuously improves the organization, scale, and intelligence of agricultural machinery services, pressing the modern "fast-forward button" for spring production. Looking ahead, Chongzuo will continue to deepen the integrated layout of "AI + Agriculture," steadily expanding the construction scale of smart farms and digital sugarcane fields. It will improve the AI big data monitoring platform to enhance intelligent early warning capabilities for seedling conditions, soil moisture, and pest and disease outbreaks. Concurrently, the city will accelerate the cluster application of smart agricultural machinery and full-process mechanized operation scheduling, continuously expanding application scenarios such as precision planting, intelligent management, and smart harvesting. All these efforts aim to create a model for smart sugarcane agriculture, further consolidating Chongzuo's core position as China's "Sugar Capital" through technological empowerment, and contributing to rural revitalization and the high-quality development of the sugarcane industry.