(CFP Photo)

A horticulture project in Shuyang County, Suqian City has ranked first in a nationwide initiative aimed at supporting modern agricultural development by the postal and express delivery industries in 2023, according to the State Post Bureau.

Shuyang boasts significant advantages in natural resources and has a horticulture history spanning over 500 years, earning it the title of "Hometown of Flowers and Trees in China."

Hu Hongmei, President of the Shuyang Flower Association, said the county has a flowering plants and sapling plantation area of 600,000 mu, with online sales ranking first in the country for several years.

In recent years, Shuyang has continued to enhance its horticulture e-commerce and industry’s upgrading through various measures, such as building a Big Data centre and an intelligent agricultural IT system to offer quality services for market players.

In Yanji Village, a big data platform was launched in February 2022, in order to help farmers collect data on air temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and light intensity.

Furthermore, Shuyang has introduced more than 150 species of flowers and trees through cooperation with the Nanjing Agricultural University, the Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other research institutes.