New technology is revolutionizing agriculture in Jinya Village of Bazhong City, southwest China's Sichuan Province. What used to be a time-consuming and costly profession is now powered by technology – thus helping China to revitalize rural areas.

Traditional farming, which involves manual labor and consumes a lot of time, isn't easy for elderly villagers like Qiu Guangrong, a local villager.  But this year, his village upgraded to mechanized production.

"There are more empty-nest elderly people here, since young people are mostly living and working in big cities," said Qiu, "Against that backdrop, we feel the current technology saves considerable time and labor resources compared with traditional agricultural models."

Qiu's village embraces technology not just during the farming process but from one of the first steps – seedling care.

The research team they've been collaborating with comprises of researchers from various universities in Sichuan Province.

Zhang Jue, PhD of Planting and Resource Development of Medicinal Plants of Sichuan Agricultural University, is among those who came to help. She has rich experience in caring for seedlings used in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Zhang said a big part of their job here is to ensure the quality of the medicine seedlings. The planting process is vital to ensure quality. So before handing them over to the villagers, Zhang and his colleagues use technology such as plant tissue culture technology to ensure the quality and protect them from virus infection.

"They'll be more effective if they grow better," added Zhang.

A local official says "smart agriculture" is saving costs, and functions like real-time monitoring make it possible to trace the whole process and ensure food safety.

"Before we started the digitalization project, this area had used the traditional farming model for thousands of years. The output was not good in the past, and the effect was low," said Cheng Ning, deputy chief of Agriculture and Village Bureau in Enyang District of Bazhong, Sichuan Province.

"After we started to digitize it, we aimed to abandon the old methods of the past and use today's new technology in an attempt to inject new vitality and impetus into our next phase of agricultural farming," he added.

According to the bimonthly Qiushi of China's Communist Party, China's achievements and efforts in fighting poverty have contributed to the global cause of poverty reduction and set a pioneering example of practical significance to the international community.

In the past seven decades, China has managed to lift 850 million people out of poverty, which accounts for more than 70 percent of global poverty alleviation, setting a record in human history. At the end of 2019, the number of impoverished people in China's rural areas fell to 5.51 million from 98.99 million in 2012.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs vowed to focus on four key tasks to achieve rural vitalization. Among these tasks, more will be done to improve rural industries, including the agricultural product processing industry, all for more job opportunities in rural China.