Interview: China has major influence on agri-tech development -- expert

Source: Xinhua| 2019-08-02 20:57:34|Editor: huaxia
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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- China plays a major role in pushing forward the "big" trends of agri-tech innovation globally with its own unique advantages, despite the challenges to produce more food to feed a huge population at home, an industry expert in Silicon Valley has said.

The "big things" in agri-tech industry include gene-editing, precision agriculture and vertical farming, in which China enjoys unique advantages, said Roger Royse, founder of the industry group Silicon Valley AgTech, in a recent interview.

"I know there's a big push towards molecular biology in China because China has challenges of increasing food production," said Royse, who is also founder of the Silicon Valley-based Royse Law Firm.

"The only way we can do that is to depend on technology. Probably the most efficient way is the adoption of gene editing, which is a big technology for China," he added.

China, of course, is not alone when facing the problem of feeding a growing population. The world's population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and the overall food production will need to increase by anywhere from 25 percent to 70 percent by 2050 to meet the demand, according to a study in 2017 by the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences.

Gene editing, instead of genetically modifying organisms, means that genes that is sniffed to lead to undesirable qualities in a crop can be eliminated, so people can breed out aggressiveness or anything that is not wanted, Royse explained.

"In plants, we've seen gene editing causes mushrooms to remain fresh for a longer time and apples not to brown when they're sliced. The possibilities are really endless," he said. "But ideally, gene editing will allow hardier crops that are more resistant to disease and maybe grow bigger."

Another big trend in China is precision agriculture, which helps increase outputs with less input, as farming stands a fairly marginal business, especially in China, said Royse.

"Precision agriculture technologies allow machines to deliver just the right amount of inputs -- not more than what that plant needs -- but just the right amount to get the optimal result," he said. "So precision agriculture is very big in the U.S. and worldwide now."

He used the "herbicide machine" developed by a Silicon Valley startup Blue River Technology as an example.

"The machine rolls down the field and it applies herbicides, not over the entire field like we used to do it. It uses machine learning and spectral imaging to look at every plant in the field. When it identifies one that's an invasive species, it saps that plant with just enough amounts for this herbicide to kill it," he explained.

"So we use about 5 percent as much herbicide chemicals in the field than you normally would," he added.

Another trend in agri-tech space where China enjoys a lot of advantages is vertical farming, a practice that uses controlled-environment agriculture technologies to produce food in vertically stacked layers.

When more and more people are moving in cities, it creates more demands for food and drives the demand for urban farming, he said.

China has unique advantages in developing vertical farming due to lower labor costs and manufacturing ability, said Royse. "Of course, China is very good at building hardware, because vertical farming is very much about hardware, like sensors and robotics," he said.

"We're not making any more land, so that's another reason why China is a major influence in agri-tech option," said Royse.

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