The 2023 Yantian District BGI Base for Popular Science was officially inaugurated Jan. 8 in Yantian District. The inauguration ceremony was attended by Zeng Jianpeng, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Yantian District Committee and executive head of Yantian District, Prof. Zhao Chaohua, deputy dean of the Desert Ecology Research Institute of Chongqing Jiaotong University, Wang Hui, deputy head of the Fairylake Botanical Garden, BGI’s co-founder Liu Siqi and CEO Yin Ye.

At the inauguration ceremony, more than100 students from middle and elementary schools were invited to explore the mystiqueof genetic science and experience the fun of farming.

According to Zeng Jianpeng, the popular science base will be built into a farmland-style base for scientific and technological innovation, popularizing science and labor education. Zeng also expects BGI to give full play to its advantages in life science and science of genetics to guide students to learn and improve their science accomplishments.

“BGI has been developing in Yantian for 15 years, and will continue to utilize its resources to promote life science, so that more and more young people can love life science and biotechnology,” Yin Ye said,adding that BGI will spare no effort to invest in cultivating agricultural science and technology talents to build the base into a high-level life science and science education platform to serve Shenzhen and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The popular science base was constructed from 13.5 acres of unused farmland. At present, the base is planted with a variety of crops including a wild rice germplasm garden, finger limes, Taiwan long mulberry fruit, rapeseed, a variety of eggplants, and a lettuce germplasm garden.

In order to allow the public to experience the fun of garden life, the popular science base has also opened an exclusive area for students to participate in farming. In this “experience area,” students have the opportunity to experience the different stages of planting from turning the soil, watering, fertilizing, thinning out seedlings, weeding, and maintenance to the final stage of harvesting.