On an autumn day in Erkenyingzi West Village, Daming Town, Ningcheng County, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, waves of golden corn ripple across the contiguous fields. For local grower Ma Tengjiang, a smartphone has become his most essential new "farm tool" — one he relies on every single day.

The screen displays a stream of real-time updates, while just beyond it, corn stalks stand heavy with fully grown ears. "First I check the soil moisture, then the crop condition, and then I look for any pest activity," Ma says, opening the smart agriculture management platform on his phone. Within seconds, detailed information about his 260 mu (approximately 43 acres) of seed corn fields appears on the display. "This is my field studio," he adds with a smile.

At 67 years old, Ma remembers the old days all too well. During the autumn harvest rush, he would chase the crops on foot, relying on sheer physical strength to secure the yield — heading out before sunrise and bending over for hours of heavy labor. Today, his land has been upgraded to a high-standard farmland plot complete with smart agriculture facilities. Machines handle the fieldwork while data manages the crops. Farmers no longer need to stand guard in the fields day and night; the approach has shifted from brute force to field inspections, data analysis, and the coordination of agricultural machinery.

This transformation is becoming the new normal for farmers across the high-standard farmland demonstration zone in Ningcheng County. Hao Dongjie, the technical lead for smart agriculture on the county's high-standard farmland, explains that local authorities advanced the construction of high-standard farmland in 2024, and in 2025, began integrating smart agriculture technologies into those fields. With the deployment of pest monitoring, crop condition tracking, soil moisture sensors, and intelligent irrigation systems, farmers who once had to repeatedly trek out to their plots to check on conditions can now rely on a remote digital management system to "watch" their fields from anywhere.

"Our goal is to completely overhaul the old model of manual field patrols, rough farming practices, and experience-based management by enabling remote visual control, automated irrigation, and intelligent early warning through smartphone and computer platforms," Hao says.

Ningcheng County is a major agricultural hub in Inner Mongolia and a national demonstration zone for agricultural modernization. It has 2.02 million mu of arable land, of which 610,000 mu have been developed into high-standard farmland. Smart agriculture — both in open fields and greenhouses — now covers 10,000 mu across the county, benefiting more than 3,000 farming households.

Ma Tengjiang's contracted plot underwent its smart transformation in 2025. To accommodate the new model, his land received upgraded irrigation pipelines and integrated water-fertilizer tubing. Six high-definition video cameras are stationed across the field, linked to monitoring terminals for soil, crop conditions, and pests. Together, they transmit real-time data on crop growth and irrigation operations back to the system.

"In the past, when I looked at the crops, I focused on whether they looked healthy. Now I have to read the data first, and then decide what to do next," Ma reflects. For him, the biggest change revolves around how he "reads" the land. Previously, during weather shifts or critical growth stages, making several trips to the field a day was routine. Now, his first instinct is to pull out his phone and check the live data collected by field sensors — soil moisture, temperature, and nutrient levels.

"Watering and fertilizing are far more precise now. I don't need to haul equipment or drag water tanks back and forth across the fields anymore," he adds.

Hao Dongjie points out that the system can also issue timely alerts when anomalies are detected, enabling growers and staff to respond quickly. Ma relied on this pest warning feature just this year. "Before, I'd only realize there was a pest problem after noticing chewed leaves," Ma recalls. This season, when the system flagged a change in pest activity, he promptly arranged drone spraying. "We caught it early and dealt with it quickly."

Still, Ma is quick to clarify that owning a smartphone doesn't mean never setting foot in the field. His "field studio" tracks everything from soil conditions to pest control, documenting the journey of a crop from sowing to maturity and arming farmland management with far more data than ever before. But he insists this doesn't mean farmers can simply "walk away" from the land. "You still need to go out for field inspections. The difference is that now you know exactly where to focus, rather than walking in circles around the entire plot," he says.

That's the most practical change for him: in the old days, people chased the land; now, data pinpoints the problems first.

This year, Ma's 260 mu of seed corn is thriving. He has crunched the numbers and expects a per-mu yield of 700 to 800 jin (350 to 400 kilograms), with a minimum increase of 150 jin per mu compared to previous years.

"Across the whole county, Ma's plot represents a microcosm of smart management on high-standard farmland in Ningcheng," says He Hongxing, deputy director of the county's Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau. "In the demonstration zone, corn yields have risen by 50 to 80 kilograms per mu, irrigation water use has dropped by 20 percent, and fertilizer application is down 12 percent. This is what high-standard farmland construction and technology-driven agriculture truly mean for farmers," he adds. "Improving farmland management efficiency isn't just about building better fields — it's about ensuring the ongoing care and maintenance that come after."