A strong girl walks out of the entrepreneurial road of "smart agriculture"

"I don't want to waste my life. I want to fight hard when I'm young." Over the past two years, this belief has enabled Lv Xiaofang to establish a geo-family farm in Jinyun County, Zhejiang Province, register the Internet of Things software, apply for a utility model patent for crocus hydroponic device, invest and perfect the farm hardware facilities... step by step, and embark on the road of intelligent agricultural entrepreneurship.

Accidental contact with saffron to find the direction of entrepreneurship

Lv Xiaofang, 32, graduated from Wuhan China University of Geosciences. After graduation, she has run a repair shop, a small business and an English substitute teacher, but she has never found her goal.

In 2013, Lv Xiaofang learned by chance from Professor Lv Weide of Hangzhou Vocational and Technical College that crocus is a rare and scarce medicinal material variety, which has the effects of dredging meridians, dredging channels and removing stasis, relieving swelling and pain, cooling blood and detoxifying, and worrying and stagnation. Zhejiang has been planting crocus for more than 30 years, and its planting area and output rank first in China. Lv Xiaofang immediately became interested in planting crocus, so he decided to follow Professor Lv in Fuyang, Jiande and other places to experiment and study how to plant crocus.

In June 2014, under the guidance of Professor Lv, Lv Xiaofang boldly invested more than 60,000 yuan to purchase more than 2000 catties of saffron seed balls from other places, developed 3 mu of saffron, and officially started her entrepreneurial road. At the beginning of her business, she lacked funds, space, experience and manpower. The only thing she didn't lack was her fighting spirit and persistence. In order to save money, she and her sister went up the mountain to cut trees and carry firewood, went home with her mother to make shelves for placing crocus seed balls, planted seed balls in the fields and moved back indoors to wait for germination and flowering. "I didn't even dare to think that I had a masculine side." Lu Xiaofang, this petite and delicate girl, was proud and confident.

Lv Xiaofang was careful when planting crocus for the first time. She managed the crocus as if it were a child, carefully observing its growth and recording it daily. The hard work finally paid off. The crocus planted by Lv Xiaofang for the first time has reached the requirements of high quality in terms of filament length, style thickness and color. The price per kilogram of filament is as high as 35,000 yuan.

"Smart agriculture" makes planting very high-end

Crocus should be rotated, suitable for sandy soil, good drainage performance, temperature and humidity should be strictly controlled. After an investigation, Lv Xiaofang couldn't get to the farm in time due to traffic jam. She was very anxious to adjust the temperature and humidity in time. From then on, Lu Xiaofang began to seriously study "intelligent agriculture".

At the beginning of 2015, she boldly invested 180,000 yuan to purchase advanced equipment and integrate information technologies such as Internet of Things and computers. Lv Xiaofang uses Internet of Things and wireless network to connect with greenhouse automatic control system, water-saving irrigation system, video monitoring system, weather station, etc., which can remotely monitor and manage, and collect data such as saffron growth and production to establish database.

"Agricultural Maker" was promoted to "Entrepreneurship Tutor"

In October 2015, Lv Xiaofang was in Hangzhou, took out her mobile phone and tapped the screen to adjust the temperature and humidity of the crocus greenhouse in the family farm far away in Jinyun County, collected the growth and production data of crocus and established a database. Her "smart agriculture" won the evaluation of "crocus planting is very high-end" by the judges, and was rated as the first top ten college students "agricultural maker" in the province.

This year, Lv Xiaofang planted crocus area of nearly 20 mu, only silk income has more than 100,000 yuan. "Next, I will also increase investment to improve farm hardware facilities and continue to improve the Internet of Things platform." Next year, I will specialize in crocus planting technology to improve efficiency and use 'smart agriculture' to drive the surrounding farmers to become rich together!" Lv Xiaofang said confidently.