In April, spring blooms in full splendour across Shanghai. Pudong’s farmlands brim with vitality and the vigour of new life. Nearly 500 teachers and students from Jincai Experimental Middle School visited Tramy Group Headquarters, Tramy Zhangjiaqiao Vegetable Base and Yaolu Village in three separate batches for a themed social practice campaign themed Exploring Smart Agriculture & Experiencing Technology-driven Agricultural Development. Stepping onto farmland, students gained first-hand insights into the robust momentum of modern agriculture.

Bathing in mild spring breezes, coaches carrying teachers and students departed from Lianyang, Huamu Subdistrict of Pudong and headed for Tramy Group. Stepping out of textbook classrooms, the students paid an onsite visit to Tramy, a well-established local staple food enterprise in Shanghai. They were amazed by the enterprise’s neatly arranged modern office buildings and production workshops as well as state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, which further boosted their confidence in the food safety of Tramy’s product portfolio. At the Crop Germplasm Wall on the 5th Floor of Tramy’s agricultural premises, technical specialists showcased R&D achievements from joint research projects with prestigious universities, enabling students to truly appreciate the tremendous scientific research input behind every single seed.

At the staff cafeteria on the 6th Floor, teachers and students enjoyed a wholesome lunch crafted by Tramy’s in-house chefs alongside Tramy’s signature soya-bean milk. After the meal, the group set off by coach for Tramy Zhangjiaqiao Agricultural Base. Rows of standardized greenhouses stretched far into the distance, with lush Chinese flowering cabbages and baby bok choy thriving vigorously. Eager to get hands-on experience, the students joined in fresh vegetable picking activities. Guided by Tramy’s technical team, the group then toured the full-mechanized leafy vegetable demonstration farm. Continuous exclamations arose as students witnessed automated machinery completing the entire farming workflow from ploughing, ridge forming and seeding all the way to harvesting. “A single farming machine can finish workload equivalent to that of over 20 farmhands in one working day, with an annual yield hitting 10 tonnes per mu of farmland,” a technician explained. Fascinated by the intelligent control panels inside machine cabins, students crowded around the instructor with numerous questions.

Later, the contingent proceeded to the digital agriculture exhibition zone in Yaolu Village. Field-installed sensors monitor real-time soil temperature, humidity, salinity and pH levels, with all operational data synced to a cloud-based management platform to facilitate precision cultivation decisions for vegetable crops. The much-anticipated highlight was the introduction of the upcoming LED Plant Factory, which features a Class 100,000 cleanroom environment capable of yielding vegetables with quality matching organic produce standards. The students’ eyes sparkled with curiosity and anticipation upon learning these details.

Following the one-day immersive Walking Classroom field trip at Tramy, many students shared their takeaways: “I once pictured farming as gruelling toil bent over loess soil, yet today I’ve discovered how innovative and stylish modern farming can be.” Teachers in charge commented that extending classroom learning to rural fields through this social practice has greatly broadened students’ horizons and planted seeds of scientific and technological innovation deep in their young minds.

The social practice programme hosted by Jincai Experimental Middle School has garnered growing positive feedback. Building on this momentum, Tramy Agriculture plans to launch fixed-point retail of its farm-sourced premium vegetable gift boxes at Pinshang Life Supermarket located at Pudong Thumb Plaza and roll out follow-up initiatives to further advance and enrich the in-depth cooperation stemming from the school’s social practice campaign.