A smart farming project in Zhejiang integrates AI, IoT, and robotics to improve crop yield and labor efficiency.

In Deqing County of East China’s Zhejiang Province, a large-scale smart-agriculture demonstration park has been experimenting with ways to address worker shortages in vegetable production.

Traditionally, transplanting, harvesting, and handling seedlings are highly labor-intensive processes involving much manual intervention, limited output and high costs. On 19 August 2025, the demonstration park was announced to have initiated a transition to digital agriculture to modernize operations.

One of the key challenges was the dependence on seasonal workers for repetitive planting activities. This had not only slowed down production during peak demand periods but had also made it difficult to maintain consistency in crop quality.

The demonstration park finally found a technology solution that could integrate automation and data-driven controls into its operations to reduce human intervention without compromising crop yields, involving:

  • Automated seedling transplanting capable of operating on short cycles
  • Conveyor-based internal transportation of crops and trays
  • Mechanized cleaning and handling systems for efficiency gains
  • Full-environment greenhouse controls including temperature, humidity, and nutrient monitoring via sensors
  • Integration of AI-driven scheduling and IoT-based monitoring across the crop lifecycle

The demonstration park has noted the automated system’s benefits:

  • Transplanting a batch of seedlings can now be completed in under a minute
  • Robotic process automation has increased transplanting efficiency by more than half compared to manual work, while maintaining predictable timelines for cultivation and harvest
  • The system does not need much manning, as it combines equipment for planting and handling with centralized greenhouse monitoring. In this way, crops such as arugula and sesame can be moved from the sowing phase to being harvest-ready in less than one month.

Independent researchers monitoring the project report that productivity has risen to between five and seven times that of open-field farming, while the controlled setting reduces exposure to pesticides and heavy metals.

According to Hu Yaofeng, Technical Manager, Zhejiang Houji Intelligent Technology, the technology consultancy that integrated robotics and AI tools for the smart park, their role was to “provide the machinery and data integration layer that makes round‑the‑clock autonomous farming operations possible.”