The 15th China Patent Award announced publicly on November 11th in Beijing, Nanjing Research Institute for Agricultural Mechanization of Ministry of Agriculture (NIAM) was declared as a winner for excellence award after invention of patent on rapeseed pickup harvester.


The rape transplanted in the Yangtze River developed tall height with many shoots with inconsistent maturity can now easily be harvested by this technology. This technology did not only bridge the domestic gap in the southern rapeseed rotation region, but also seems as a bottleneck of rape production mechanization in China.

The rapeseed pickup harvester designed on this patented technology has unique features when compared with the manual operation. The features are  improved efficiency (more than 30 times the old technology), saving operation costs (more than 900 RMB per hectare). It reduces labor intensity significantly and saves time of the farmers. On top of that it enable farmers to increase their income since the combine harvester gives more output with low operating cost in a minimum labour requirement.

According to information from NIAM, in 2010 the technology was tested publically and there after started to be applied and well adopted by users in Yangtze river and other part of China at large. This innovation has not only increased agricultural development in Yangtze region but also boosted rapeseed production that has improved farmers’ livelihood.