The Food and Agriculture Organization reported on 16 June 2020 that China Agricultural University and Pinduoduo had launched the inaugural Duo Duo Smart Agriculture Competition. The four-month challenge in Yunnan invited teams to develop strawberry-growing methods suited to local conditions, with FAO providing technical guidance.
Technology teams were expected to grow strawberries remotely using greenhouse data from cameras, sensors and connected devices. A separate category brought experienced growers into the competition. Evaluation would consider both crop quantity and quality, rather than yield alone. The organizers also proposed support for winning research and opportunities to transfer digital methods to small-scale producers. This was an announcement of the competition design, not a report of its final results or evidence that artificial intelligence would outperform farmers across all production settings.
