 Forget the relay, who wants to farm?
By Lin Shujuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-04 07:39
YANGLING, Shaanxi: Once, when I was a child, my father took me with him to work in the fields. At the end of the day, I was exhausted, but I remember what he said to me: "If you don't study hard and get a good job, you'll have to spend the rest of your life this way." As I was growing up, I considered many careers; farming was not one of them. Yesterday, however, as I watched the Olympic torch relay here, I began to reconsider. To be honest, until I checked the route for the relay, I did not actually know where Yangling was. I now know that it is about 90 km from Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, and is said to be the birthplace of Chinese agriculture. Legend has it that around the time of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century - 771 BC), a man called Hou Ji, who is said to have been of royal descent, introduced farming technologies to the people of Yangling and began a revolution that would one day lead to the creation of the Chinese civilization. During the industrial revolution, however, the area slipped into the shadows. But in 1997, the government set up the Yangling Demonstration Zone for Agricultural Hi-tech Industries in the hope of modernizing the industry by taking advantage of the area's favorable location and large workforce. It appears to have worked. Yesterday, I spoke to Li Zhuoli, a 57-year-old farmer, who said: "I would say that these days, we have nothing to complain about as farmers in Yangling. "Our lives have improved a lot over the past decade, especially since 2003, when the government launched a series of farmer-friendly policies," the father of four grown-up children, three of them college graduates, said. These days, farmers can get interest-free bank loans to help build greenhouses and are paid subsidies for rearing pigs, he said. "Also, if we ever have any problems with planting or pig farming, we can get help from Xingnongwang.com, a website that was set up to provide technical information and services to farmers. "We can even call the university (the Northwest China Science and Technology University of Agriculture and Forestry in Yangling) and get help from experts." Thanks to the technical improvements and government policies, Li said his annual profit per mu (667 sq m) of land has risen from less than 300 yuan ($43) 10 years ago, to 15,000 yuan today. "And because we spend only four months a year in the fields, we have more than 200 days to do other things, like part-time work to make extra money, or just relax." I asked him if it was possible for me to settle down in Yangling and become a farmer. Li chuckled and asked me why I would trade my urban life for that of a farmer. "Why not?" I said. "You get fresh air, good food, a stable income and lots of spare time. What could be better than that?" (China Daily 07/04/2008 page6) |
