Heilongjiang province, the country's largest agricultural producer, will continue to leverage agricultural technology to enhance high-quality agricultural development in the next phase, the National People's Congress deputies from the province said during a group discussion in Beijing on Friday.

Liang Huiling, the province's governor, said that the province is located in one of the world's three major black soil belts and is recognized globally as a prime area for corn cultivation and livestock farming. Those have given Heilongjiang unique advantages in developing modern agriculture, she noted.

Last year, the province's total grain output reached a new milestone of 80 billion kilograms, ranking first in China for 15 consecutive years and accounting for 11.3 percent of the country's total output, according to the governor.

"One out of every nine bowls of rice nationwide comes from Heilongjiang," said Liang, who is also a deputy to the 14th NPC. "This year, Heilongjiang is focusing on modern agriculture as its main direction, effectively transforming resource advantages into industrial, economic and developmental advantages".

The deputy emphasized the importance of technological innovation in agriculture, noting that Heilongjiang has 78 higher education institutions and 120 independent research institutes, with four national key laboratories in the agricultural sector alone.

"We will tackle key core technologies and accelerate the application of research outcomes," she said, adding that the contribution rate of agricultural technology has reached 70.8 percent.

Additionally, she stressed the importance of protecting and utilizing black soil, which she referred to as the "panda of arable land".

Black soil is known for its high nutrient content, making it exceptionally fertile for agriculture. The soil in China is primarily found in the country's northeastern region.

Liang said that the priority is to develop high-standard cropland on black soil, integrating soil improvement with the construction of windbreak forest networks.

According to the senior official, last year, Heilongjiang completed the construction of 10.4 million mu (693,333 hectares) of high-standard cropland, achieving project initiation and completion within the same year. The province now has nearly 120 million mu totally of such farmland, the largest scale in China.

"This year, we will build more than 11.69 million mu of high-standard farmland," she said.

The high-standard cropland refers to farmland that has been improved to ensure stable and high agricultural productivity.

Heilongjiang is also home to the world's largest state-owned farm group, Beidahuang Group, which has the largest scale of arable land, the highest level of modernization and the strongest comprehensive production capacity in the country, according to the provincial government.

Yu Jia'ao, Party secretary of the Baoquanling branch of Beidahuang Group, said that Beidahuang has accelerated the development of informatization, digitalization, intelligence, and unmanned farming on the basis of large-scale and mechanized agriculture to boost production.

"We have collaborated with institutions like Harbin Institute of Technology and Northeast Agricultural University to establish a national key laboratory for smart agricultural technology and information," she said.

"Currently, the rate of automatic driving equipment configuration in Beidahuang's agricultural machinery is 40 percent. Over 90 percent of our farms collect field data through sensors, shifting from weather-dependent farming to data-driven farming".