A combine harvester works in a field in Zhangjiagang, a county-level city in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/zjgonline.com.cn]

Zhangjiagang, a county-level city in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province, has promoted the use of technology such as big data, artificial intelligence, and agricultural machinery, according to local media reports on June 1.

Since the city was selected as a demonstration city for the mechanization of grain production by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2018, it has allocated 28 million yuan ($3.93 million) in special funds to encourage such mechanization, with 94 percent of farming work now mechanized.

Zhangjiagang has also offered subsidies and other incentives to encourage agricultural modernization this year, raising the proportion of subsidies used for purchasing complex and unmanned large and medium-sized agricultural machinery from 30 to 50 percent.

The city currently has five self-driving combine harvesters, 13 self-driving rice transplanters, five self-driving tractors, and more than 30 agricultural protection UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).

"Grain production has increased due to the use of new agricultural machinery. Making use of a Beidou satellite positioning system, the machines move in a spiral route, and can swerve, reverse, and harvest automatically," according to Xu Jiang, chief of the agriculture and rural affairs bureau of Zhangjiagang.

"The application of UAVs will accelerate the the city's agricultural mechanization, and help solve problems related to aging populations in rural villages," Xu added.