An intelligent combine harvester works in a field in Zhangjiagang, a county-level city in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/zjgonline.com.cn]

Farmers in Zhangjiagang, Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province, are applying advanced technologies to make traditional farming smarter, with the city's overall level of mechanization in ploughing, sowing and harvesting reaching 95.9 percent, ranking first in Jiangsu.

With the help of six rice planters, local farmer Wu Jian finished 200 hectares of rice planting in 12 days, which was impossible in earlier years.

To cope with the loss of labor force, Wu organized an agricultural machinery cooperative in 2009 and purchased more than 100 modern agricultural machines and tools such as harvesters, rice planters and plant-protection machines, offering services to more than 2,000 hectares of farmland in surrounding areas.

"We can provide farmers with one-stop services from planting to harvesting, and generate annual output of more than 5 million yuan ($714,000), ensuring rice production has been fully mechanized," said Wu.

Currently, Zhangjiagang boasts 71 agricultural machinery service organizations, and the operation area of agricultural mechanization has exceeded 80 percent, helping increase incomes for local farmers.

The city has also increased investment in smart farming, promoted the use of agricultural unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and provided subsidies to those purchasing UAVs.

Zhangjiagang now has five self-driving combine harvesters, 13 self-driving rice transplanters, five self-driving tractors, and more than 30 agricultural protection UAVs, making farming more precise and efficient.