Silkie chicken productivity in China’s orange-rich southwestern mountainous province of Guizhou has increased by 30% thanks to AI agriculture.
According to China Daily, a breeding station at Tiantaishan hamlet in Chishui is using artificial intelligence for tracking and monitoring purposes.
The breeding locale is exclusive to the Silkie chicken, an atypical fluffy-feathered and crested type that originated from Asia. Though most farms rear it as an ornamental kind, it is nevertheless an average layer of up to 120 eggs annually.
Xu Qiyong, the site’s manager, noted how “AI has significantly improved” the distinct domestic fowl breed’s breeding capacity.
One of the milestones of the technology is to track the steps of the fowls, which average up to 20,000 daily. The cloud chips on each specimen senses these steps and alerts if they fall below 1,000, as this indicates poor health.
It is not just in health monitoring but reduction in predators, too, where this AI model is playing a part. By basic formation, the terrain of the Chishui area is 92.5% uneven, which makes poultry easy prey to lurking predators. This is where cameras and sensors play a part to signal the whereabouts of the poultry.
The smart chicken station began in April 2023 via Tencent Cloud partnership with other tech companies and Shenzen University.
Fruits of this surveillance include rapid egg production which has earned the base 300,000 unit sales beginning 2023.
Chicken Productivity Up 30%
During the same period, the chicken productivity rate has grown by 30%, with sales exceeding 100,000 live birds amid evergreen demand.
This AI model has even goaded the University of Guizhou to partner Tencent Cloud to evolve a huge language system for poultry.
As such, the partnership could evolve the technology to levels that similar agricultural models in Asia’s food processing industry have attained.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that a rugged hinterland is showcasing tech-aided boost in chicken productivity in China. And as the following statistics point, China boasts some firsts in its live hen, chicken meat and egg sectors.
China Chicken Statistics
China is regularly one of the three top producers of live chicken, chicken meat and eggs. According to FAOSTAT, the Far-east nation had 5,260,888,000 chicken stock in 2021, which rose to 5,290,244,000 in 2022. With 46% of all chickens in the world living in Asia, China leads Indonesia and Pakistan in continental stocks. Indeed, the three countries together produced 9.8 billion live units in 2022, equal to the American output. However, China is not the highest chicken-producing country, which crown goes to the United States with 9.8 billion units (2022).
How high is chicken meat production in China?
In terms of chicken meat production, China came third globally in 2019 at 14 million tonnes. Only Brazil and the U.S. at 16 and 20 million tonnes, respectively, turned out more output.
Is China a big chicken meat consumer market?
According to the Global Trade Magazine, China emerged the second biggest chicken meat consumer in the world at 15 million tonnes in 2019. Only the United States at 17 million tonnes consumed more.
What is the egg production status of China?
China is the world’s top egg-producing nation from both hens and other poultry. In 2022, the output hit 583.96 billion pieces, more than four times that of second-coming Indonesia at 132.04 billion. In as early as 2011, China also led in the category of hen’s egg production at 24.8 billion kg.
Where is hen production concentrated in China?
The provinces of Henan and Hebei, both in northeast central China, together with Shandong in coastal eastern China lead in production. They are followed by Liaoning in the northeast and Jiangsu in the east.