The agriculture industry in Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province has become more mechanized since 2017, local media reported on July 9.

According to the Taizhou Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the agriculture industry in the city has completed its goal of machines replacing human beings one year earlier.

The implementation opinions released by the Taizhou Municipal Government three years ago state that by 2020, 20,000 hectares of rice in the city will be planted by machines, the overall level of mechanization in ploughing, sowing, and rice harvesting will reach more than 76 percent, and 80 agricultural machinery cooperatives will be established.

"In fact, we completed all those goals in 2019," said Chen Fengping, director of the agricultural machinery management department of the local municipal bureau of agriculture and rural affairs.

He added that the overall level of mechanization in ploughing, sowing, and rice harvesting reached 80.88 percent in 2019 and is expected to reach 82 percent this year.

As of the end of 2019, Taizhou is home to 147 agricultural machinery service organizations and roughly 10,000 employees were working with agricultural machinery, according to Chen.

Since spring this year, agricultural machines have played an important role in ploughing in the city. As of May 21, Taizhou has sent more than 4,000 agricultural machines to plough 24,586 hectares of farmland.