Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, a Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant, recently announced the establishment of a grapefruit digital farmland in Kecheng, one of six districts and counties in Quzhou, Zhejiang province, local media reported.

"Alibaba plans to introduce AI technologies to the farmland management and therefore, each fruit tree can be accurately identified and the soil of each orchard is expected to be equipped with a digital map," said Ma Jiao, a senior expert from the agricultural department of the e-commerce giant.

Ma also noted that farmers are capable of checking on their fruit trees and pesticides usage via a cloud data management platform to make sure their produce is healthy.

According to Alibaba, grapefruits from the digital farmland will be sold on the company's self-operated online and offline stores.

A spokesman from the e-commerce office of Kecheng district said that the project, the first digital farmland of Alibaba in Zhejiang, is of great importance for the district to achieve agriculture digitalization.

The first phase of 1,000 mu (66.67 hectares) digital farmland has started construction.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, a Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant, announces the establishment of a grapefruit digital farmland in Quzhou. [Photo/IC]