Across China: Profits Grow Out of "Plant Factory"

Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-30 | Editor: mingmei

BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) -- At 8 a.m., Qin Peng puts on a white coat and stands in front of a machine that blows dust off of him, preparing to start work.

Qin, 45, said the dust on the human body may contain pest eggs, so it has to be blown off.

Qin is a vegetable planter. Instead of toiling in fields, he works in a "plant factory" in the southeastern suburb of Beijing, where eight types of vegetables including lettuce and spinach are growing on planting beds.

The factory, with an area of over 10,000 square meters, is a project of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com.

Last December, the company's fresh food brand JD Fresh partnered with Japanese chemical manufacturing giant Mitsubishi Chemical to open the factory featuring Japanese hydroponic technology.

To enhance livability, seeds are isolated in a sealed seedling box for around one week. The temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide concentration inside the box are adjustable to keep seeds growing in the best condition. LED lights are also equipped to accelerate the growth of vegetables.

After maturing, the seeds are taken out of the box and plugged into the holes on the plant beds, where their roots can be soaked in a nutrient solution.

The adoption of the recycled nutrient solution enables the factory to consume 90 percent less water than a traditional plantation, and the standard growing process is much more efficient, said Zhao Lei, head of the plant factory project.

"For instance, the growing season of spinach is only 19 days, which allows 19 harvests in one year, while the traditional cultivation of spinach on a farmland plot has only four harvests each year at most," he said.

Zhao said the factory-grown vegetables are sold both online and offline at four to five times the market price of ordinary vegetables, but still sell out every day.

The company aims to set up to 10 plant factories in China. The newly built facility is located in the Tongzhou District of Beijing and is expected to produce 300 tons of vegetable annually with its 11,040 square meter production area.

Zhou Wenjuan, a customer in Changping District, Beijing, has been ordering hydroponic vegetables online for more than a month.

"They are so clean that I don't even need to wash them. The vegetables are grown in a fully enclosed room without pests, and thus pesticide is not used," she said.

With rising incomes and a growing demand for a better life, an increasing number of Chinese consumers are willing to spend more on high-quality food that is nutritious and free of pesticides.

Besides the hydroponic plant factory in Beijing, similar soilless cultivation projects are seen in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Dalian, Changchun and other cities across the country.

Many enterprises, including China's largest food trade company COFCO, and scientific research institutions like the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have been engaged in the sector.

Zhao did not disclose the profits of the plant factory but said they are planning to expand.

"The factory does not need pesticides and can avoid soil pollution. Our 10,000-square-meter factory only needs eight workers. These advantages ensure the profitability prospect of the plant factory," he said.

“The JD Plant Factory in Tongzhou marks JD’s entry into the very beginning of the fresh food production chain, allowing us to guarantee that the fresh goods we sell have been treated with the care JD applies to everything we do. JD’s supply chain technology, logistics network and e-commerce expertise combined with Mitsubishi Chemical’s sophisticated growing technology puts us in an ideal position to create an entirely new model for agriculture, and cultivates a fresh and healthy lifestyle in China,” said Xiaosong Wang, president of JD FMCG and food businesses