Brief:

39-year-old Lin Yaping runs a family farm based in a suburb of the city of Suzhou in eastern China, growing strawberries, corn and other kind of fruit and vegetables.

?????? Describing herself as a new generation of farmer, the university-educated woman has overcome one obstacle after another to shatter long-standing stereotypes about farming and farmers in China.

?????? “My parents are rice farmers, and they know how tough it is to be a farmer, so in the very beginning when I decided to work in agriculture, they warned me: I would fail. They said, farming is a tough job, and it is poorly paid. Don’t do it.”

?????? But, over a decade into the operation of her farm, this stubborn woman, as she defines herself, has seen her efforts and perseverance in the tough agricultural world turn into fruits and new hopes.

?????? “Some of my customers say to me: Miss Lin, you must run your farm well. If you fail, where can we buy such good-quality farm produce? I promise them I would work hard, and try to make my farm a time-honored brand.”

?????? But how exactly has this stubborn farmer done this? And what did she do to reshape people’s understanding about farming and farmers in China?

?????? Suzhou has been a pioneering region in China’s market-oriented economic reform and growth since the 1980s. Although the city is now best known for its manufacturing industry and cultural and tourist attractions, it still retains a key part of its agricultural heritage in the suburb in the northwest. The area called Yuting 御亭 modern agricultural park is home to a dozen small-size modern farms, producing rice, various types of vegetables, fruit, and poultry.

(fruit? C/U C: tropical fruits, such as bananas, and pineapples; U: eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables水果整體)

?????? The farms, each smaller than 20 acres in size, are typical of eastern China, where the high density of population and scarcity of land means farms are small.

?????? Lin Yaping, a middle-aged soft-speaking woman, wearing glasses, greets us.

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?????? She proudly introduces her farm which amounts to about 12 acres covered mostly by white polyethylene/PE （白色地膜?）/polythermal?.

?????? Lin says the farm’s main produce is strawberries and corn, in addition to other kinds of fruit and vegetables, such as oranges, tomatoes, and Lokewas?

?????? “For each kind of crop I plant, I try to make it good-quality, which should be green and taste good.”

?????? Across the world, profit margins for farms are mostly low, even developed countries subsidize farmers heavily. Take the U.S. for example, the Federal government spends more than 20 billion $ a year on subsidies for farm businesses. Lin Yaping’s farm is no exception. But by targeting the high-end niche market, her farm stands out and makes her handsome profit every year. That’s about 300 k yuan, or more than 40k $ on average.

?????? Targeting the high-end market also means she has to present high-quality produce and adopt new marketing modes.

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?????? “With regard to good sales and marketing of my farm produce, the first step is to produce good products. In other words, the quality of the produce is the key. When consumers recognize your products, there will be a stable group of buyers. Then whatever farm produce you present, they will buy them, as long as you grow them in a eco-friendly and green way.”

?????? To many urban residents in China, food safety and quality of farm produce have become a major concern in recent years, as a result of rising living standards and purchasing power.

?????? Unlike traditional farmers, Lin makes good use of social media to promote her products and stay in touch with her customers as she sells her farm produce directly to the end-consumers.

?????? “My customers place orders via Wechat, then my farm deliver the goods to them directly. We don’t rely on wholesalers to purchase our goods. The advantage is flexible for us to deliver, say, a basket of strawberries, vegetables, or Lokewa? to the customer.”

?????? Lin Yaping often poses daily up-dates about her farm on popular social media, so that here friends and customers could stay informed about the growing process of her farm produce, and how the farm is run. She says her Wechat account links to more than 7,000 individuals, at least hundreds of them, if not thousands, are her regular customers.

?????? “I truthfully update the daily life from a farm via social media platforms, such as Wechat moments and Douyin. Through my updates, people come to know how I run my farm, even though they don’t visit it in person.”

?????? Such a new social media technology helps to build a bond between her and her customers, a revolutionary marketing technique compare to the old ways.

?????? “Every customer can contact me directly, whenever they have comments or complains about my farm produce. For example, a customer may say something is wrong with the strawberries she gets from me. Then I can determine what is really wrong with the fruit and make changes to my way of growing accordingly.

?????? The feedback from one customer may be trivial or minor, but it is important for me to improve my goods and services.”

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?????? Of course, better quality and service come with a higher price, and take more time.

?????? In the region of Suzhou and Wuxi, the strawberries are usually priced at 120-140 yuan/kilo. Many strawberry growers try various means to bring their goods to the market at an early date. “Some of them present their fruits in mid-Nov. when my strawberry and crops are just beginning to blossom and bear fruit. It is only one month later that my strawberries start to begin hit the market. I sell them at the price of 120-140 yuan/kilo, but at that time when other growers cut the price to 80 yuan/kilo.”

?????? Every year, strawberry crops produce 3 batches of fruit. Some farmers try to quicken the growing process by raising the temperature and humidity of the greenhouses, but the method makes the crops and fruit prone to a disease called Gray Mold, which, then, often involves the use of pesticides.

?????? Lin’s farm is an exception.

?????? “I adopt a principle of organic farming (原話是“源于自然，回歸生態(tài)”) when I grow my strawberries. This means I let the strawberries and crops grow naturally. In order to avoid using pesticide, I ventilate the greenhouses frequently. As a result, the temperature is not high enough and crops grow a little bit slower. Everything I do is done to ensure the quality of the fruit.”

?????? Furthermore, Lin Yaping says she takes the eco-friendly measures to preserve and protect the health of the soil in her farm.

?????? “If you come to my farm in summer, you might see all the plastic films of our greenhouses brought down and doors closed. In fact, we are also irrigating the fields. The heat created by humidity inside the greenhouse and the scorching summer sun can sanitize the soil. We will repeatedly make the soil wet and dry, in an effort to remove the harmful bacteria and the eggs of pests. In this way, the fertility and vitality of the soil can be restored and maintained (土壤肥力恢復(fù)).”

?????? Such a meticulous and eco-friendly way of growing makes her strawberries tasty and leads to positive feedbacks from her customers.

?????? “The taste of my strawberries is real and genuine. Many of my customer have told me that my farm strawberries taste like real strawberries. I said yes, they are just strawberries, simple and pure. My farm products may hit the market late, but many customers want to wait for them. I feel very happy about this.”

?????? Usually, she and her husband deliver goods to customers based in the city of Suzhou within a distance of 2 hours drive. But her products reach customers in regions as far as in metropolis of Shenzhen, a 1500 km to the south of her farm, thanks to modern logistics.

?????? “For example, we harvest corn around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. In the evening, we package them, usually in scores of boxes. Then, we entrust them to the delivery driver. At around 10 in the next morning, the corn will be in the hands of the customers. Once I received a message at 10:30, saying it is very fresh, which means my customers were already eating my corn.”

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?????? High quality, smart marketing, and fast delivery, Lin Yaping’s farm grows step by step. 3 years into its operation, she established her farm brand, “Lin Meimei”, and registered it, a move few traditional farmers would take.

????? “In the traditional wholesale market, pay no attention to the farm brand. But for the new farmers, we pay more attention to the cultivation of our brand. It’s easy for the customers to find you if you have a brand.”

?????? The Chinese pronunciation of her brand “Lin Meimei” reminds people of the nickname of the beloved heroine in one of the best-known classic novels, “Dream of the Red Chamber”. But her version is a combination of her family name Lin and Meimei, which means strawberries.

?????? Over the years, this name has proved to be cute, easy-to-remember, and popular among her customers.

?????? “Some of my customers said to me: Miss Lin, you must run your farm well. If you fail, where can we buy such good quality farm produce. These customers have become my good friends, and they trust my farm and my farm produce. They know some other farm they patronized have failed. Farm owners have turned to other occupations. So I promise them: I will work hard and try to make my farm a time-honored brand.”

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?????? Yet, despite her hard-won success, Lin admitted her farm, like many other farms, has never been free of challenges and setbacks.

?????? In the first 2 years, she made no profit at all and her farm survives merely through bank loans and borrowings from family and friends.

?????? To add fuel to the fire, natural disasters hit her farm from time to time. The latest came just 2 years ago. In the winter of late 2019, and early 2020, a cold snap hit the region of Suzhou, temperatures dip to -10℃, rare for the region. Around the turn of the year, Lin herself caught a cold. What’s worse, she worried about her strawberries and rushed to take measures to help the crops fend off the unusual weather. To cope with the unprecedented cold snap, she and her fellow strawberry growers tried several methods, including burning charcoal, installing air heaters or spraying chemicals on the crops to boost their resistance to the cold.

?????? But due to the suddenness and intensity of the cold snap, Lin saw her strawberry crops damaged by frost bite before she took an eco-friendly, effective, and affordable measure to deal with the weather. ?

?????? “We have no good way to deal with the cold snap. It’s not realistic to burn charcoal to warm the strawberry crops because of the risk of CO poisoning. The crops survived the first cold snap, but another cold snap struck one week later. One day, when I went to the fields to check the crops, I found the leaves of the crops look like boiled petal leaves/boiled hydro leaves? The strawberry leaves and the newly grown strawberry fruit were both damaged by frost bite.”

As a result, no good strawberries came out of farm that year.

?????? “When a person catches a cold, he/she will be prone to illness. It is the same when it comes to strawberries. So, in that year, we suffered a loss of 2/5 of strawberry sales, compare to previous years. The loss was severe.

?????? Her loss amounted to about 100k yuan. But fortunately, her farm was well-positioned to take it, and quickly regain its vitality.

?????? After the incident, Lin learned a cost-effective and eco-friendly way to help the strawberries cope with frost bite – adding another layer of plastic film to cover the infant strawberry fruits. In fact, cold snap was just one of the many challenges her far encountered in its more than one decade operation. Other natural disasters include typhoon, draughts, and so on. But due to her smart work and perseverance, she and her farm got through each of them.

?????? “It is in my character to see through what I do. I’m stubborn and I will not shy away in the face of obstacles.”

?????? Lin Yaping’s resilience alone has not been enough for her farm to survive all the challenges and eventually gain popularity among her customers. Government support has played an indispensable role.

?????? In 2012, local officials in the northwest suburb of Suzhou decided to upgrade local farming and attract entrepreneurial young people to the country side. They established Yuting modern agricultural park, comprising farm land rented from several local villages.

?????? Lin Yaping’s farm is one of the pioneering entities in the park, thus receiving preferential government support. Since then, sustained public and private investment has flowed to the park, for building public roads, irrigation systems and other agriculture-related facilities. Currently, 56 better educated new farmers are working in the park, running a dozen modern farms.

?????? “In 2008, when I first came to the village, there was no other person working here with a university degree. In 2012, there were about a dozen university-educated farmers living here. Now the number is growing larger and larger with more young graduates joining our rank.”

?????? With her farm in a good condition, in recent years, Lin Yaping has begun to devote part of her time to promoting modern farming among young people.

?????? In 2017, she launched 2 courses about farming at local college to encourage young people to work in agriculture. To date, nearly 6,000 students have attended her class. At the end of each class, Lin shared her social media account with the attendees so they can contact her directly after the class. “I told my students to add my Wechat and said if you want to grow strawberries or do something in agriculture, or your friends want to ask me something about farming, you can come to me directly. I had little to refer to when I first to work in agriculture, but now you have me. I’m willing to give you some advices.”

?????? Lin’s aiming to shatter traditional notions of farming in China. For thousands of years, peasants with little education have toiled on the land, and have been at the mercy of weather.

?????? Being a farmer equipped with new ideas, she is seeking to reshape farming and protect the environment with green and modern technologies. And this is driving her to enlighten others and encourage them to join her. Together, she hopes they will eventually make a difference and bring China’s agriculture to a new level. Humble and modest, this experienced new farmer is advising young graduates to first work for established farms and agricultural companies before launching their own agri-businesses.

?????? “Work with your heart, and be bold to ask questions, and learn new things. During this process, you should get the necessary practical knowledge about agriculture, enrich your experience, and get connected with people working in this sector.

More importantly, you will have a period of time to think again about what you really want and can do. If you don’t think it through beforehand, you will fail after you start your own farm or company. It’s not difficult to get started, but few stick with it.”

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Under the influence and guidance of Lin, at least 14 college graduates have so far come to work for or launched agriculture undertakings in the Yuting modern agricultural park.

Jiang Qing, a fresh graduate from the Suzhou Polytechnic Institute of Agriculture, is one of them. The 22-year-old hails from (comes from) a traditional farming family in eastern China’s Anhui province. Currently he works at Lin’s farm to learn the necessary practical skills about running a farm before launching his own agri-business.

“The environment of the countryside is more suitable for me. It’s spacious. I don’t like the hustle and bustle of the cities. I think the future for many Chinese young people lies in the countryside. The vast areas of farm land is promising and full of opportunities廣闊天地，大有可為.

Passion and ambition; good. But Lin Yaping warns young people, like Jiang, should prepare for hardship and setbacks. For anyone who aspired to succeed in agriculture, Lin said the most important thing is to stick to it.

“Once you start it, you must devote yourself to what you do. Don’t give up after 1 or 2 years. You must stick with it. This is the message I want to convey to the young people the most.”

In fact, until recent years, going to the countryside and taking a job in agriculture are not on the radar of most Chinese college graduates. Both Lin and Jiang admit most of their classmates don’t take farming jobs even though they have learnt agriculture in school.

In China, most parents object their well-educated loved ones choosing to work in agriculture and living in the countryside. The sentiment results from the deep-rooted concept that farmers live harsh, rustic lives with lower social status.

In 2008, when Lin chose to work in the countryside, her parents, especially her mother, were shocked. “I was not willing to support her. Farming is very tough and tiring.”

“My parents are rice farmers and they know how though it is to be a farmer. So, in the very beginning when I decided to work in agriculture. They warned me I would fail. They said, farming is a tough job, and it’s poorly paid. Don’t do it.”

Lin Yaping studied agriculture back in college, plant nutrition and soil science, to be specific. Right after graduation, she decided that her future lay in the countryside. Although faced with opposition form her parents, she received crucial support from her husband.

“It’s fortunate for me to have my husband by my side. Whenever I felt stressed and frustrated, I’ll talk to him. The same goes the other way. Sometimes, we chatted all night. Besides being a family member, he is my best friend, partner, and mentor (原話“亦師亦友”).”

Now over a decade has past since Lin jumped into the tough and risky world of agriculture, her mother is relieved, and satisfied.

“Now I felt good for her. Her endeavor in agriculture have yielded fruits. This is beyond my expectation. I’m very satisfied with what she has achieved.”

Lin’s case is typical of what has happened to China’s agriculture and country side over the past decade.

Since 2012, the country has made great strides in the development of agriculture and revitalization of rural regions. Lives of farmers and rural residents have seen further improvement (農(nóng)民和農(nóng)村居民生活水平進(jìn)一步提高). In 2018, China reorganized and rebranded the Ministry of Agriculture, as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (中國(guó)農(nóng)業(yè)農(nóng)村部). This has shown that the central government attaches great of importance to rural construction and development and welfare of farmers. By the end of last year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents more than doble to almost 19,000 yuan, or nearly 3000 $ from 2012 levels, according to statistics from the ministry.

Furthermore, over 3,900,000 modern farms now dotted the vast countryside across the country, supplying the world’s largest population with quality farm produce. (as if it happens itself).

Undoubtedly, toil, sweat and hardship make up an essential part to farming life, but for Lin, working as a farmer also means joy and fulfillment.

“My happiest moments are when I see my efforts and perseverance turn into fruits(堅(jiān)持出成果的時(shí)候). For many times I have considered giving up, but in the end I persisted. I said to myself, how fortunate I am that I see my hard work produce results.”

Lin adds that one such particular moment came that one of her customers, pregnant with her second child, visited her farm, with her elder kid. The woman’s family was a long-time consumer of Lin’s strawberries, and she joked that the baby inside her belly was also beginning to eat Lin’s strawberries.

“Hearing this make me so moved at the bottom of my heart. I made me feel that my hard work is worthwhile（沒有白費(fèi)）. I’ll continue to develop myself to growing quality strawberries.”

Lin herself has a teenage son and daughter attending primary school. She says they often have fun in the open air against the backdrop of beautiful scenery and promising farmland.

In her leisure time, Lin sometimes goes to a cafe next to her farm, chatting and hanging out with friends as they bath in the fragrance of flowers and ripe fruits brought by the fresh gentle breeze blowing from the farmland.

As the Chinese saying goes, food is the parament necessity of the people(民以食為天). Lin is determined to work hard on her farm, trying to bring more tasty food to people’s dinning tables as she has promised her customers.

2022-10-14