National Geographic

FEEDING CHINA 99with crabs that are sold for food. There are pro-duce greenhouses, broccoli fields, drones todistribute chemicals, a near-finished dumplingfactory, and a one- million-hen egg factory slat-ed to triple in size—large enough to justify atemperature- sensitive robot to automaticallycull dead birds. CP Group also expects to harvestenough chicken manure annually to produce22,000 tons of organic fertilizer.Last year the company built a vertical farm, anairy, translucent box housing six 30-foot towerswith rotating shelves of plant beds, akin to Fer-ris wheels. When I visited, they held bok choy,amaranth, and garlic chives. The controlledenvironment allows for targeted fertilizer appli-cation, eliminates the need for most pesticides,and produces quadruple the yield of a field withthe same footprint, Wang says. This is remark-ably promising for a country with too little farm-land, particularly one where farmers add to thecountry’s pollution woes by using three timesas much fertilizer as needed. It also sets up CPGroup to comply with the government’s goal,announced in 2015, of capping fertilizer andpesticide use by 2020.The complex is largely an exercise in applyingmanufacturing logic to food, and Wang, who struckme as part pragmatist, part dreamer, envisions``````$WDQDXWRPDWHGIDUPRZQHGE\&3*URXSWKUHHPLOOLRQKHQVOD\DERXWPLOOLRQHJJVDGD\5RERWVGHWHFWDQGUHPRYHGHDGELUGVHQDEOLQJDVLQJOHZRUNHUWRWHQGFKLFNHQV1RUWKHDVWRI%HLMLQJLWŠVWKHODUJHVWVXFKIDFLOLW\LQ$VLD