AI expected to improve crop yields, food security

Research on digital humans — robots with emotions and intelligence — topped this year's list of frontier scientific questions at the annual conference of the China Association for Science and Technology.

The 10 major scientific questions, 10 engineering challenges and 10 industrial technology questions of 2024, covering hot topics such as artificial intelligence, agricultural safety, the origin of Chinese ancestors, deep space exploration and the pursuit of China's "dual carbon" goals, were released during the association's 26th annual conference, which was held from Monday to Thursday in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Zhu Hengshu, director of the Career Science Lab at Boss Zhipin, an online job-search platform, said the new generation of AI technologies, represented by large language models, will replace approximately 56 percent of professions.

"These professions include data analysis, marketing sales, video editing and so on," he said.

"And it will also enhance the professions such as finance and medical doctors, giving rise to a series of emerging professions such as prompt word engineers, language model trainers and ChatGPT optimization specialists."

CAST has organized national societies, federations of societies, enterprise associations and university science associations to list and discuss major scientific questions and challenges since 2018.

This year, nearly 600 challenging questions were submitted by 102 organizations, in areas including mathematics, physics, chemistry, ecology and environment, and life sciences and health.

The biological basis of high photosynthetic efficiency in crops, proposed by the Chinese Association of Agricultural Sciences, was one of the 10 top frontier scientific questions.

Members of the association believe that improving the photosynthetic efficiency of agricultural crops and cultivating high-efficiency varieties will lead to increased food production, ensuring national food security.

Currently, the light energy utilization efficiency of major crops under natural production conditions is only between 1 and 2 percent, according to the association.

"Technologies such as AI, big data and 5G will revolutionize production methods in agriculture," said Luo Xiwen, a professor at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Luo said unmanned farms have been established in Guigang, Guangxi, where tasks like plowing are automated using autonomous tractors and other equipment.

"We can send instructions from Nanning via mobile phones to remotely control drones to take off and spray pesticides," he said.

"In the past, farmers had to physically inspect the fields to determine crop diseases. Now, drones can fly over the fields, analyze images automatically, decide on the necessary treatments, and even determine the type and amount of pesticides to be used. All these decisions can be made by computers and information technology, which we refer to as intelligent decision-making."

Luo said the average rice yield in China has risen from 1.89 metric tons per hectare in 1949 to 7.125 tons.

Over the past 70 years, advances in technology, including seed breeding, land conservation, cultivation techniques and agricultural mechanization have significantly boosted agricultural development, greatly enhancing food security.

"Agricultural mechanization still has many aspects to develop," he said.