The high-quality rice variety "Koshihikari" has recently begun its official harvest at the Donghe Jiugu Happy Farm, and the citizens of Shanghai have enjoyed the first bowl of this year's locally-produced, high-quality new rice from Chongming.

In the rice fields of the Happy Farm, golden rice panicles sway in the wind, and two harvesters are working at full throttle, shuttling back and forth across the fields. The first batch of rice to be harvested is the "Koshihikari" variety, covering an area of 30 mu. "Koshihikari" is a high-quality rice variety specially introduced by the Happy Farm and is also one of the earliest maturing high-quality rice varieties in Shanghai.

The cultivation of "Koshihikari" rice follows the path of urban agriculture to produce fine rice, with an output of only 300 kilograms per mu. Last year, this variety of rice won the gold award in the China division of the 4th International Rice Taste Evaluation Conference, with a market price of 120 yuan per kilogram. Du Junqi, the chairman of Donghe Jiugu Happy Farm, said, "In terms of taste, rice that is 80 percent ripe is more fragrant than rice that is 90 percent ripe, so this year we specifically set aside 30 mu for this trial."

Chongming has a good ecological environment and germplasm resources, which provide a broad space for the farm to produce high-quality rice. The farm continues to strengthen agricultural science and technology innovation, and has built a modern rice seedling base, drying and storage center, rice processing plant, agricultural machinery center, rice museum, and other fully functional modern production bases, taking big steps in the modernization of Chongming's agriculture.

With the advantages of variety and timing, "Koshihikari" rice has seized the market opportunity. In the future, the farm plans to expand the scale of high-quality rice cultivation to let citizens taste more high-quality rice.

The harvesters used by the farm are equipped with a smart brain, which can obtain real-time data on the taste value, moisture and yield of rice according to the field block. This data is used to observe and study the taste and yield of rice at different stages of maturity, providing a reference for later processing, storage and next year's production.

The first batch of harvested "Koshihikari" rice, after drying, processing and packaging, was on the market on September 6, allowing citizens to enjoy the first bowl of this year's high-quality new rice from Chongming.