Editor's note: This report focuses on Chongqing as part of our special series, "Rising Star Cities," about Chinese cities whose annual GDP exceeds 1 trillion yuan ($155.4 billion, or more than the GDP of Qatar). At the end of 2020, there were 23 such cities. Click here for more stories on Chongqing. You can also explore our earlier coverage of Ningbo and Changsha.

Agriculture is deeply integrated with technology in Ganning, a small digital town tucked away in Wanzhou District, making agricultural production more intelligent and inspiring rural vitality in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

The town has been making waves ever since the district's government teamed up with several scientific research institutes to establish the Three Gorges Agricultural Innovation Center. The center has helped more than 200 industry demonstration parks and over 10 modern agricultural companies to upgrade their planting and farming techniques for activities such as pig farming, tea cultivation and growing traditional Chinese medicine herbs, among others. 

Three Gorges Agricultural Innovation Center uses fertilization techniques from Israel, which help spread the fertilizer evenly across the vegetable fields in the mountainous region, said Li Yi, Party secretary of Ganning Town. This is something the center could not do before due to the rugged terrains, he added.

"The Israeli technology improved the planting efficiency by 10 percent and reduced costs by 20 percent," said Yi.

One of the most fascinating sectors in the center is the intelligent greenhouse. Digital technology can adjust the temperature, humidity and light according to requirements. When the room temperature is higher than 30 degrees Celsius or lower than 20 degrees Celsius, digital control systems will bring it back to a normal range. 

Besides, the center also has a big data platform that can monitor crop growth and farm remotely. Three Gorges Agriculture Group is one of the participants that established the center. 

"By using a video link, the experts are able to remotely monitor the production in real-time and provide real-time assistance and technical support for crop growth and farming," said Zhang Benjie, chairman of Three Gorges Agriculture Group.

The platform also has some agricultural experts from Shandong, a province famous for advanced agricultural planting, to provide consultancy services, said Zhang. 

This method proved to be very efficient and it helped to provide services to a large area during the COVID-19 epidemic, he added.

As the next step, this digital planting model will be promoted to more regions. Shugu Farm in Chongqing's Liangping District is another digital farm. 

There are several modern agricultural parks in neighboring Sichuan Province. 

Li said all of the these digital farms have sent people to Ganning Town to learn the design and technologies used. Most of these agricultural parks plan to sell their produce in downtown Chongqing soon. 

The Three Gorges Agricultural Innovation Center plans to set up 10 national-level high-tech enterprises and target at breakthroughs in 30 scientific fields by 2025.