The Tongzhou factory provides a clean, pest-free environment for all crops and as such there is no need for insecticides in the growing process. Its fruit and vegetable produce is as natural as can be. Factory representatives say even washing before consumption is unnecessary.

The Beijing crop factory is not the only such operation changing the future of agriculture in China. A few years ago, as the earliest LED-lit plant factory technology was developed at the Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development of the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a small-scale factory proto-type started operations at the Changchun Agricultural Expo Park in northeast China's Jilin Province.

According to Yang Qichang, a research fellow with the institute, while plants are exposed to all spectra of sunlight, experiments have demonstrated that the wavelengths most absorbed by plants (60 percent) are those we see as red and blue. "An artificial light source containing the right mix of red and blue rays can meet plants' sunlight needs without affecting their quality," says Yang.

Plant factory technology is moving forward rapidly. Another factory was opened in October 2011 at Anzhen Agricultural Science & Technology Park in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Operators of this new "plant" have installed film insulation to growing areas that acts as insecticide and greatly reduces the already slim possibility of its produce suffering at the mandibles of insects and bacteria. The future of agriculture looks bright, green and has a factory sheen in China.