On July 1, 2026, The Paper reported on the container plant factory of Xiangtian Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. in Jitai Town, Shouguang, Weifang, Shandong. Unlike many projects that remain at the demonstration stage, the company’s products are already exported in batches and have entered special scenarios such as polar research.
Opening the cabin door, lettuce and spinach grow on multi-layer vertical racks; LED grow lights simulate sunlight, a gentle airflow system replaces natural wind to promote gas exchange, and the roots sit in nutrient solution supplied precisely by an intelligent water-and-fertiliser system.
Liu Shoucheng, deputy general manager of the company, said the cabin integrates a full set of smart systems: LEDs adjust light wavelength and duration by crop, the airflow system simulates natural wind, and a customised nutrient solution replaces soil. “For lettuce, conventional open-field planting takes 50 to 60 days, while in a container factory it takes only 25 to 30 days.” With multi-layer vertical racks, a container with a floor area of just over 30 square metres offers a growing area equivalent to more than 150 square metres of flat farmland, about five times the yield of conventional planting. The technology has been extended from leafy greens to forage grass, edible fungi, rice and strawberries.
Products are mainly sold to regions where conventional agriculture struggles. “These two units are going to Morocco; the four units they bought earlier worked well for forage grass, so this is a repeat order. Those over there are going to the United States...” Liu said, pointing to containers ready for shipment. The Shouguang-built containers have been exported to the UAE, Canada, the Netherlands, Morocco, the United States and other countries and regions: they produce steadily in the 50°C desert heat of the UAE and keep growing in Canada’s extreme cold through insulation and temperature control. The mobile vegetable garden has also been installed on China’s polar research vessel, becoming a vegetable garden at sea for the crew.
Rather than selling equipment alone, the company provides a full chain of technical services covering seedlings, water and fertiliser regulation, intelligent environmental control and after-sales operation, while continuously improving energy consumption and space utilisation and extending applications to island garrisons, remote mining areas and emergency reserves.
Market feedback shows that container plant factories are first accepted not around cities but in regions with extreme climates, scarce land and high transport costs — deserts, cold zones, islands and vessels, where the value of local production far exceeds yield per unit area. This also means competition is decided not by the box itself but by insulation and temperature control, energy consumption, water and fertiliser recycling and remote operation, and by whether a cultivation plan can be delivered together with the equipment.
At present, most export orders for container plant factories are concentrated on forage grass and leafy greens, crops with short cycles and relatively simple management. Whether stability can be improved and operating costs reduced will determine how far this product form can go in emerging markets.
Source: The Paper, “Xiangtian Agriculture in Jitai Town, Shouguang: unlocking cultivation technology with containers”
