Wageningen University to collaborate with Pinduoduo on its 2021 Smart Agriculture Competition
August 16 2021 - 6:48AM
Wageningen University and Research (WUR) of the Netherlands will
work with Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD), China’s largest agriculture
platform, on the 2021 Smart Agriculture Competition, helping to
promote innovation in automation and precision technologies to
increase efficiency in agriculture.
The Smart Agriculture Competition, which runs from
August 2021 to March 2022, will draw teams from around the globe to
remotely grow tomatoes, combining agronomic knowledge with
precision technology such as greenhouse automation, sensors and
algorithms. The objective is to develop efficient techniques to
grow tomatoes with high yield and nutritional quality at a low
cost, while using an environmentally sustainable approach.
Dr. Silke Hemming, head of the Greenhouse
Technology research team from WUR, will be one of the judges at the
Smart Agriculture Competition. She will review submissions during
the competition, provide technology support to participants and
share best practices from the Netherlands.
Teams that reach the finals will be assigned a
96-square-meter stand-alone smart greenhouse, to cultivate the
tomatoes and verify the results of their growing models. The
participating teams can independently control the greenhouse
facilities, including ventilation, shading screens, water, lighting
and fertilizer systems. Cameras will also allow teams to monitor
and obtain real-time growth parameters.
WUR will host workshops on greenhouse horticulture
and future trends in intelligent agriculture. Specifically, WUR
professors will share on topics such as the digital transformation
of the Netherlands’ agriculture supply chain, tech-empowered
greenhouse horticulture, tomato postharvest quality prediction, and
biological control strategies in the greenhouse. The workshops will
take the form of an intensive boot camp with 1-2 days training,
combining both online and offline support.
Deploying automated technology in working farms is
one of the aims of organizing the Smart Agriculture Competition. As
part of its mission to promote agricultural modernization,
Pinduoduo has sought to gather the top minds in technology and
agronomy to develop “one-click planting” solutions to help improve
the productivity of farmers and their livelihoods.
The inaugural competition last year, co-organized
by Pinduoduo and the China Agricultural University with the
technical guidance of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, pitted traditional farmers against data scientists
in a strawberry growing contest. The technology teams produced 196%
more strawberries by weight on average compared with traditional
farmers, and also outperformed in terms of profitability of
investment, according to the organizers.
Final scores in this year’s competition will be
judged on the quality, yield, efficiency of energy consumption, the
deployed algorithm strategy and commercial viability. The winning
team will receive 450,000 yuan ($69,500) from a total prize pool of
over 1 million yuan. Other rewards include funding from the
Pinduoduo Agritech Research Fund and collaboration opportunities
with competition partners.
About Pinduoduo Inc.
Pinduoduo is a mobile-only marketplace that
connects millions of agricultural producers with consumers across
China. Pinduoduo aims to bring more businesses and people into the
digital economy so that local communities can benefit from the
increased productivity and convenience through new market
opportunities.
For more information on Pinduoduo news and
industry trends, please visit the content hub at
https://stories.pinduoduo-global.com.
For media inquiries, please contact
internationalmedia@pinduoduo.com
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