On August 26, Shen Licheng, a major grain grower in Beilian Village, Xindu Town, Babu District, Hezhou City, Guangxi, walked along the field ridges and felt reassured watching his green late-season rice swaying in the breeze. This year, his early-season rice reaped a bumper harvest, with the highest yield surpassing 525 kilograms per mu, and he also achieved an integrated process of drying and milling.

"Now, we use intelligent transplanting machines for planting and drones for pesticide spraying and fertilization, making farming increasingly time-saving and labor-efficient," Shen Licheng told reporters. Since the start of this year, Babu District has focused on the bottom line of food security, vigorously advancing the development of agricultural mechanization, intelligence, and socialization. It has continuously strengthened the infrastructure for agricultural science and technology. Through smart agricultural machinery operations, intelligent equipment empowerment, and precise services from rural science and technology commissioners, modern technological forces have been fully deployed to support the "double rush" (rushing to harvest early-season rice and rush to plant late-season rice), ensuring stable production and bountiful harvests.

Early-Season Rice: Harvested Quickly and Stored Well

In the past, early-season rice harvesting relied heavily on manual labor, which was not only time-consuming and labor-intensive but also prone to issues like incomplete harvesting and grain loss during threshing, leading to food waste. How to seize the farming season and ensure every grain is safely stored? During this year's "double rush" period, Babu District fully implemented mechanized and intelligent harvesting operations. In key production areas such as Xindu, Pumen, and Renyi, combine harvesters carried out integrated operations of harvesting, threshing, cleaning, and straw returning to the field. The district improved its cross-regional agricultural machinery dispatch mechanism, coordinating and allocating both local and external machinery resources, implementing staggered operations, piecewise advancement, and unified scheduling. By seizing the window of sunny weather, the district effectively avoided losses from rice lodging and grain shedding, ensuring the rapid and safe storage of mature rice.

Beyond harvesting, proper storage is equally crucial. To address the challenges of grain drying and storage brought by frequent summer rains, Babu District has continuously improved grain drying supporting facilities in towns and villages, building a comprehensive, standardized, and intelligent drying service system. In major grain-producing areas like Pumen Town, drying centers of various cooperatives operate at full capacity, using intelligent detection to precisely control grain moisture and scientifically regulate drying temperature and duration. This effectively solves problems like mold, sprouting, and deterioration caused by rainy weather, fundamentally changing the traditional "sun-dependent drying" model and stably safeguarding the income of grain farmers. "With the new intelligent drying equipment, harvested rice can be dried and stored immediately without relying on the weather. We feel much more secure as grain farmers," said Li Zongchao, a major grain grower in Liuhe Village, Pumen Town. The intelligent drying service has fortified the line of defense against grain storage losses, firmly guarding the final checkpoint of the harvest.

Late-Season Rice: Strong Seedlings and Vigorous Growth

While rushing to harvest and dry early-season rice, Babu District is also diligently preparing the land and raising seedlings for late-season rice, ensuring both harvest and planting proceed without delay. Seedling raising is the first step toward a bountiful late-season rice crop. During the critical land preparation phase, Babu District has overcome the pain points of traditional manual seedling raising, such as uneven emergence, inconsistent growth, and weak resistance, by relying on modern seedling centers to carry out standardized and intelligent seedling cultivation, achieving full-process standardization and mechanization. At the Central Babu District Regional Rice Industry Center located in Luqiao Village, Liantang Town, batches of high-quality late-season rice seedlings are emerging from the greenhouses and being systematically transplanted to the fields of major growers. "The center leverages intelligent greenhouses to intensively cultivate late-season rice seedlings, implementing unified seed selection, scientific germination, constant temperature control, and standardized management. The seedlings we produce have robust root systems, uniform growth, and strong disease resistance. After transplanting, they green up quickly and have high survival rates, which is more conducive to standardized field management," explained Liu Shenglun, the center's head. Since the second half of this year, the center has cultivated seedlings capable of planting 3,400 mu of paddy fields, with seedling lifting starting on July 30, greatly meeting the demand of major growers across the three counties and two districts of Hezhou. "Previously, raising seedlings ourselves was labor-intensive and time-consuming, and we also had to worry about the weather," said Huang Puzhao, a grower from Xinlian Village. "Now, we can directly order seedlings and have transplanting done by machines. During the harvest season, they even offer guaranteed-price purchase of wet paddy and alternative drying services. For field management, plant protection drones handle pest control. It's very convenient."

To simultaneously improve the efficiency and quality of machinery, equipment, and technology, Babu District has deployed all rural science and technology commissioners to the fields. Focusing on key stages such as loss-reducing harvesting of early-season rice, scientific grain drying, late-season rice seedling transplanting, field pest and disease control, and high-temperature water and fertilizer management, they guide growers in the standardized use of intelligent agricultural machinery, scientifically manage field growth, and avoid risks in agricultural production. At the same time, these commissioners visit villages and households to promote scientific grain cultivation, green pest control, and cost-saving and loss-reduction technologies, effectively enhancing farmers' scientific farming skills. This achieves improved efficiency through mechanical operations, enhanced quality through intelligent equipment, and a safety net through agricultural technical services.

In recent years, Babu District has continuously improved its full-chain scientific and technological service system for grain production and constantly upgraded modern agricultural infrastructure. Currently, the district has built 13 standardized seedling centers and 16 grain drying centers, equipped with 15 intelligent seedling sowing lines, 58 transplanting machines, and 80 grain dryers. The annual service capacity for intelligent seedling raising reaches 36,200 mu, and the batch drying capacity reaches 1,720 tons. Additionally, the district has established two regional agricultural machinery socialized service centers and formed 15 professional agricultural machinery operation service teams, achieving unified dispatch of agricultural machinery resources and full coverage of scientific and technological services. Ouyang Jun, Director of the Babu District Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau, stated that in the next step, the district will continue to optimize the integrated service model combining machinery dispatch, intelligent seedling raising, grain drying, and rural science and technology commissioners. It will address the shortcomings in modern agricultural development, continuously enhance comprehensive grain production capacity, and firmly build a strong shield for regional food security while promoting high-quality development of modern agriculture.