Beijing, China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of researchers working at China National Seed Group
2. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Song Weibo, head, science and technology innovation department, China National Seed Group (partially overlaid with shot 3):
"This spring, we have released a total of 10 new (corn) varieties to the northeastern and Huang-Huai-Hai regions. With the help of our independently-developed corn variety positioning system, we can accurately draw up a map detailing locations suitable for growing each variety of corn."
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3. Form showing corn varieties, growing regions, other information
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Pukou District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, east China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
4. Aerial shot of farmland
5. Various of van; technician testing van
6. Various of drone taking off; flying above farmland

Haining City, Zhejiang Province, east China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
7. Farm monitoring platform
8. Various of technicians working; phone screen showing farm information

Beijing, China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
9. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Tu Shengwei, researcher, Macroeconomic Research Institute, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)(starting with shot 8/partially overlaid with shot 10):
"China is speeding up its transition from imitation to independent innovation, in terms of agricultural science and technology innovation. New quality productive forces in the agricultural area are accelerating the empowerment of traditional farming activities, with land output rate, labor productivity and resource utilization efficiency being greatly improved."

Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, east China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
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10. Agricultural sprayer in operation
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11. Various of agricultural sprayer in operation; crops

Fushun County, Zigong City, Sichuan Province, southwest China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
12. Various of technician operating drone; drone taking off; flying above farmland

Guangshan County, Xinyang City, Henan Province, central China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
13. Various of crop breeding factory; farmers working

China has stepped up efforts to promote agricultural modernization, with big data systems and agricultural machines being put into use.

This spring, batches of new crop varieties have been grown in different parts of the country according to their own conditions.

In Beijing, a big data-empowered crop variety selection platform has been put into large-scale application for the first time.

It divides China's major corn-producing areas into more than 60,000 grids, each of which is roughly 5km x 5km.

With the help of satellite remote sensing technology and agricultural environmental algorithms, the system can find the ideal growth area for new corn varieties.

"This spring, we have released a total of 10 new (corn) varieties to the northeastern and Huang-Huai-Hai regions. With the help of our independently-developed corn variety positioning system, we can accurately draw up a map detailing locations suitable for growing each variety of corn," said Song Weibo, the head of the science and technology innovation department at China National Seed Group.

In addition, advanced agricultural machinery and equipment have been put into use across the country to improve agricultural productivity.

In Pukou District, Nanjing City, east China's Jiangsu Province, technicians have been testing a newly-developed drone.

The drone, which is equipped with a voice recognition system, can take off and perform tasks above farmland, once the operator issues an instruction verbally.

In Haining City, east China's Zhejiang Province, an AI model has been used in spring farming activities.

As early as a year ago, massive agricultural data have been incorporated into the model. Now it can provide suggestions on farming activities in just a few seconds.

"China is speeding up its transition from imitation to independent innovation, in terms of agricultural science and technology innovation. New quality productive forces in the agricultural area are accelerating the empowerment of traditional farming activities, with land output rate, labor productivity and resource utilization efficiency being greatly improved," said Tu Shengwei, a researcher of macroeconomic research institute at National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).