Principal of the Rice Paddy College

By Zhou Huacheng

Principal of the Rice Paddy College

By Zhou Huacheng

I was grown up from a small village called Xihou in Quzhou,Zhengjiang Province.In my Childhood,when the farming season was coming,I also had to roll up the trousers and joined into the busy work in the rice paddy with my parents,and always get tanned like charcoal.

Once I was about to give up and break down since the pain causing by the transplanting and harvesting the rice,the warning of my parents would be arisen by my ears:“If you do not study hard,you have to do the farming work like now forever.”

Father’s Rice Paddy

When I was 16,I finally left the village and was admitted by a vocational schoolinthecapitalcityofour province which is hundreds of miles away.This opportunity meant I could get rid of the farming and obtain the urban life.

Later,I found a decent job in Hangzhou and picked my parents to live with me there.But,they could not get used to the city.Father had nothing to do and he thought it would numb him into idiot.They would rather go back to the hometown.Just walking by the crop field would make them happi er.

However,in rural there are less and less farmers like my parents now.It is very hard to find a peer of my age in the village at most time of the year. Only during the spring festival vacations,could I find them and within few days,they will all disappear even sooner than the smell of firecrackers.

I tried to find someone who was stillfarming.However,onlytwo households there still kept the farming tools and only one household still had a farming ox.

At the beginning,I told my father that I would like to plant some rice in our hometown and sell them to the people living in the city.My father was astonished.Later when I told him the rice could be sold at 60 yuan per kilo,he dropped his jaw.

My father has had some education from high school.He had been rural electrician for dozens of years,and after retirement he gets 2000 yuan per month for pension.But in his deep heart,he still though himself as a farmer who could not leave the land. No one could be more anxious than him,if the land was deserted.Actually,how many products could he get from those land?I helped him do the math job,and the result was that it could just feed our family.

In the winter of 2013,I launched a crowd-funding project called“Father’s rice paddy”on Zhongchou.com.My idea is simple:I would like to grow some rice with father together by the most traditional farming ways in my hometown.After being lived in urban for such a long time,I know it is very hard for the city people to get some pure natural food.Meanwhile,I also want to keep or spread the farm culture waning day by day.

I priced the rice from the project as 60 yuan per kilo,since the“Fine Rice”in the gift box could be priced as 260 yuan for 2.5 kilogram in the mall,and the popular“Rice from Japan”was sold as 100 yuan per kilo. At that time,I thought naively,it would be reasonable to price at 60 yuan per kilo,since those rice were all grown by our own hands and watered with our sweats.Those who ordered a certain amount could bring their kids to the field to try the farming experience.Those who ordered more than 10 kilo could get our home-made alcohol brew from grain.

However,all of these were just my own dream.I have no idea at all whether it could work out and I just treated it as a trial.Beyond my expectation,this project was of great success:in only two months after the project was launched,all the 500 kilo were ordered up.

Experiencing the Farmland

Therefore,the farming began.In the early spring,I took my daughter together with my father to dig the land with hoes.This rice paddy which is used for our project covers only an area of less than 2mu.I followed my father in the field,recording his plow ing and farming with both words andimages.

Father and I

In May 2014,father sank the seeds, kept them warm and tried to germinate them.After 3 days,when the grain grew out white sprout,father seeded them into the field.In June,when the seedlings grew tall enough,they could be transplanted.I send this information through the web and asked those who are interested to bring their children here and experience the farming.On June 14,64 friends from Hangzhou, Quzhou and Changshan rolled up their trousers with us and went to the field happily.Some kids began to cry when their feet reached the land of the field.

I shared the pictures of whole growingprocessonWeichatplatform which covers plowing,breeding,germinating,seeding as well as transplanting,watering,weeding,earing and flowering till the paddies were ripe and harvested.And later my father learned how to use the smart phone,with his Weichat user name“principal of the rice paddy college”

A Proud Peasant

I brought my daughter back to home town,and her grandpa taught her carefully on how to distinguish the rice and weed,as well as transplanting.

Father used to have the idea of giving up farming,but he did not give it up for his whole life.It became inseparable from his life.

Till our generation,he put a lot of hope on me to go out of the villageand throw away the hoes,since farming is too harsh a labor work.

But when it comes to my daughter’s generation,farming becomes an en tertainment.Every time we go back, my daughter who is in her second year of primary school is so happy.She finds everything interesting and full of fun.She enjoys seeking for new insects and wild flowers.

Because of this project,many city people come to our rice paddy.We togethercarriedouttheheavyrice thresher to the field and used the sick le to harvest.These jobs were so unfamiliar to them,not mentioning to the kids.Even the journalists from CCTV Finance Channel came to my hometown and shot our stories for two days.

After the harvest we spent 3 days drying paddies and sending them to the old mile.Every grain of rice seemed so precious when it finally came to our hands.I,together with my family transported those well packed rice to the delivery agents and sent them to our customers and friends throughout the country.

My father was tremendously pleased when I told him all the feed-backs I got.I was fortunate that my naive and unrealistic dream came true by the spiritual supports and actual helping of those strangers all over the country.

My father was so proud of this project.Being a lifelong peasant,he has never been so proud for farming.I do hope,there could be more peasants who feel proud for their land,like my father.

(FromNewWeeklyVol.102015. Translation:Zhao Yan)

My Father's Rice Paddy