Future agricultural science and technology three breakthrough points: plant factory, smart agriculture, functional food

Face the loess and back to the sky -- this is the impression of agriculture.

Traditional agriculture is a resource-intensive, labor-intensive industry, but the development of science and technology, especially the rapid development of biotechnology, information technology, logistics industry, agriculture is getting rid of land and water and other resources and labor bondage.

So what will agriculture look like in the future?

Plant factory

Land is the carrier and foundation of traditional agriculture. However, the continuous growth of population, the depletion of land resources, and the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events have brought the development of traditional agriculture to a "bottleneck period".

Therefore, scientists have proposed the concept of "vertical agriculture", that is, the use of advanced planting techniques to extend agriculture upward, rather than outward. This comes from the understanding and use of plant growth mechanism - we know that plants grow by the sun, they use sunlight for photosynthesis, carbon dioxide and water in the air into glucose, starch and other organic matter, so that they can grow tall, grow, until the flower fruit, breed offspring.

Vertical agriculture uses this principle, that is, under the right conditions, as long as the plant is given enough light and the necessary nutrients, it can achieve indoor planting of plants - the crops can be "planted" in the air, the buildings are turned into farms, and the method of workshop production is used to produce food and fruits, and even chickens, ducks and fish.

This factory farming system for the production of plant products is the "plant factory".

Plant factory is a highly efficient and stable plant production system with full intelligent control of the growth environment conditions such as light, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and nutrition. At present, plant factory is the advanced stage of the development of facility agriculture, and is regarded as the "vitality stock" and "potential stock" in the field of agricultural industrialization, representing the future development direction of agriculture. The study found that as long as the growing environment is controlled, the growth cycle of plants can be regulated. By increasing the light, changing the "light formula", improving the nutrient solution composition, etc., the growth cycle and growth state of the plant can be controlled. For example, lettuce and bok choy can take 30-40 days to harvest when grown in farmland, but only about 20 days when grown in plant factories. Therefore, in the plant factory, the plant grows in the artificial kingdom, as long as there is enough light (energy) and nutrition (water, air, minerals, etc.), fruits, vegetables and even food can "grow one crop after another", almost unaffected by the outside weather, light and soil environment.

Without soil, what do plants in plant factories "eat"?

Unlike field production, plant plants require clean cultivation space, and for some seedling and tissue culture plant plants, even sterile culture rooms. Under such conditions, it is necessary to "feed" the plant with nutrient solution. The plant factory uses a circulating nutrient solution to provide nutrients to the plant.

We often say that turnip vegetables, each has his own love, different plants also have different "tastes" and "feeding preferences". For example, leafy vegetables, eggplant melons, cauliflower vegetables, nutrient solution requirements are different, edible and medicinal plants for nutrient solution composition, acid and alkali, temperature, etc., also have different "picky" degree. This requires the nutrient solution in the plant factory to be personalized preparation, sterilization, transportation and recovery, real-time monitoring of nutrient solution changes and automatic supplement and correction, to ensure that the plant is always in a stable and excellent nutrient solution environment.

Smart agriculture

In recent years, "information" and "artificial intelligence" are not only two fashionable words with a very high usage rate, but also become the core vocabulary and direction of efforts in many industries. Similarly, with the help of information technology and artificial intelligence, smart agriculture is getting closer and closer to us.

The application of drones, intelligent robots and big data technology in agriculture will make agriculture enter the era of digital, accurate, networked and intelligent smart agriculture. We can think of the data platform as the "brain" of smart agriculture, which uses data application services and integrated systems to acquire and analyze data and make decisions to guide agricultural production. So the farmer of the future will say goodbye to the hoe and the water pump, because he can do everything from planting to harvesting by remote operation.

Compared with traditional agriculture, the future agriculture supported by digital technology will be an intensive, large-scale, environmentally friendly and efficient agriculture, which is a earth-shaking change in production methods. Therefore, agriculture has become a vigorous sunrise industry, the future farm is a pollution-free green ecological farm, farmers will become the envy of everyone.

Functional food

With the improvement of people's living standards, people are no longer satisfied with a full stomach, but pay more attention to the intake of green and healthy food. The development of biotechnology has promoted the combination of agriculture and health industry. First, science and technology continue to analyze the relationship between food composition, dietary structure and nutritional conditions and human health, so that people understand how to enhance physical fitness and improve immunity through "eating"; Second, modern biotechnology makes it possible to cultivate plants with special functions, and the improvement of breeding technology and cultivation technology can realize the quantitative enrichment of certain nutrients or functional substances in agricultural products, leading the future development of agriculture to functional agriculture, producing high-quality, nutritious and food with certain special functions, also known as functional agricultural products.

According to the consumer groups of functional food, functional food can be divided into general functional food and special functional food.

The focus of general functional food is nutrition and health care, aiming at healthy consumer groups. Promoting balanced nutrition, increasing dietary fiber, regulating the physiological state of the body, improving immunity, etc., are often achieved by eating general functional foods. For example, α-linolenic acid (ALA) belongs to the Omega-3 series of polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are the synthetic precursor of essential life active factors eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and are essential for health, but the human body cannot synthesize α-linolenic acid itself, and α-linolenic acid is also very low in our daily food.

Producing food with special function for special population has always been the direction of scientists' efforts. Statistics show that the average weight of Chinese people exceeds that of many other countries, and China has become one of the "fattest" countries in the world. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia and other "diseases of wealth" are becoming more and more common, so we are always asking, is there any food that makes people eat fat? Can we produce special food for diabetics? Grain rich in high resistant starch is an effective solution, which is also a hot spot in crop breeding and functional food research at home and abroad.

The main component of rice, flour, corn flour is starch, for example, in wheat seeds, starch content accounts for more than 80% of the weight of the endosperm. The starch we eat is first hydrolyzed by amylase and progressively digested to produce oligosaccharides and glucose, which are directly used by the body or stored in the liver in the form of glycogen. Resistant starch mainly exists in high straight chain, low amylopectin granules, known as "anti-enzymatic starch" or "indigestible starch", people eat difficult to digest quickly, help to maintain a constant blood sugar level, but also has the function of dietary fiber, promote gastrointestinal motility, increase the absorption of zinc, calcium, magnesium ions, not only can promote human health, It's an ideal diet for people with diabetes and obesity.

Rapid advances in genomics research, molecular design breeding, gene editing, synthetic biology, wild germplasm mining and plant cultivation have provided scientists with the technology, methods and materials to produce healthier foods and more versatile agricultural products.

With the in-depth study of the function of genes and molecular modules, the breeding process of some crops is more and more like the "plug-in assembly" process of modular toys. Synthetic biology and gene editing technology can not only introduce anabolic pathways that do not exist in plants, but also realize the rapid domestication of wild resources. Therefore, with the support of a variety of molecular biology research technologies, the breeding process of some crops is more and more like the "plug-in assembly" process of modular toys. Combining different excellent traits to breed new varieties with high yield, stress resistance, green, nutrition and special functions to meet the needs of different consumers has gradually become the status quo of agricultural production.