[Taiwan, China] Only three phone calls are needed to grow rice-direct attack on Taiwan's rice farming

Many people say that farmers eat every day, but apart from God, farmers are most afraid of offending one kind of people. This person can decide who should harvest first and dry the rice into the valley first and then arrive. Even farmers have control over whether the rice this season is delicious or not. Typhoon days are their most popular moments. Farmers will bring lunch, beer and Baolida to visit. Even if it takes two hours in the middle of the night, it will blow and rain at 3 o'clock, there can be no complaint whatsoever.

Which person has such great ability? The answer is "substitute cultivator".

Looking for substitute farming, interpersonal relationship is the key

the literal meaning of "substitute farming" is "to replace other people's farming". Although many people will go to the countryside to transplant rice seedlings, cut rice, and dry rice, this is not the norm in rural areas. As early as 3 or 40 years ago, Taiwan introduced rice transplanters, Harvesters, grain drying machines, etc., make rice planting more efficient, and those who specialize in operating these machines to make a living are called substitute farmers.

Many people often laugh and say that now rice planting can be easily and easily put into the bag by making three phone calls, one for land preparation, one for rice transplanting, and finally another for harvesting.

However, the actual situation is of course not so simple. Although there are fixed farmers in each region, the farmers said that when a typhoon rushes, which field to harvest and bake first is not only based on the location, but also very important. Therefore, the following dialogue often occurs: "Please, I have known your uncle for so long, so help Joe." Sometimes, even the dead elders moved out: "My abba did it for you when he was alive. It's been so long. Please help me."

typhoon days never sleeps

although the final power of life and death is still in the hands of the farmers, sometimes they will be defeated by "Lu" Gong.

At the beginning of July this year, Santai forced Taiwan to harvest the first rice harvest in Yilan. Farmers used life-threatening serial buckles to "coerce" the operators to cut until 2 or 3 o'clock in the middle of the night, and the sun rose the next day to continue working. This is also an important time for voters to serve. The powerful village chief will dispatch harvesters overnight and personally take charge of the rice cutting site. The whole countryside is like a city that never sleeps.

The baking plant on a typhoon day is another battlefield. Wu Shaowen, a farmer who helped in the grain baking farm, pointed to the bottom floor of the three-story refrigerator and said that farmers knocked at the door early in the morning and each hand had a can of Poly Da. "The bottom floor of this refrigerator is full." The harvested rice is full of water and must be dried within 24 hours. When the harvest was rushed this year, the Yilan Farmers Association and the grain-drying farm were lined up with large trucks carrying rice. Some surrogate farmers said half-jokingly that the farmers just didn't kneel down, please.

In addition to four two-story grain drying machines and stacking machines, Li Hanshi's grain drying factory in Yuanshan, Yilan, also has a 30% recliner beside bags of yellow millet. He was too busy to sleep during the typhoon. The recliner was his best friend. "Millet is New Taiwan Dollars. Everyone has to grab it and can't do it at all." Then how can we refuse the farmer's request cruelly? "I still have to say it, otherwise I will be exhausted. A person's ability is limited."

harvest and prepare lunch, the tacit understanding of the countryside must be observed.

Li Hanshi has been engaged in substitute farming for more than 30 years. He is one of the few "one-stop" substitute farmers. He takes care of seedlings, fields, grain baking and rice milling. He only has no harvester. Like other substitute farmers, he also rents 20 A farmland to grow rice.

In Yilan, about 700 yuan usually needs to be beaten twice, once rough and once fine. The quality of the technology affects the farmers' harvest in one season. If the beating is uneven and the field is flooded unevenly, they will have to face the nightmare of weeds. Li Hanji said that he hates stones most when hitting fields. In addition to being easy to hit, serious cases may also hurt machines and tools, "but I can't hit fields without me."

after farming, the price of rice seedlings is also 700 yuan. Many nursery farms also work as rice seedlings. Harvesting is 1100 yuan. The price of baked grain can be divided into dry grain and wet grain. Take Li Han period as an example, the price per kilogram of dry grain is 2 yuan.

These are the figures on the book, and the private eyebrow corners are the interesting places in the countryside. For example, it is the basic common sense of farmers to prepare lunch and drinks for the farmers during harvest. Whether to eat or not is another matter. If you are not prepared, you will be regarded as "impolite"; in addition, if you do not drain the water during harvest, the harvesters may not say it, and their impression of the farmer may be compromised, because this will shorten the life of the harvester.

When baking rice, they are most afraid of uneven ripening degree or too small quantity. Generally, the humidity of rice is about 25 degrees, which takes more than 20 hours to dry, and it is reduced to about 13 degrees. The firepower is too strong, the rice is easy to break, too weak, and the operation time is prolonged. It depends on experience. If the ripening degree of rice is uneven, the quality of baking will also be reduced. If the quantity is not enough at one time, the machine may not be detected, it depends on human judgment.

Lack of manpower, small and medium-sized baking field gradually decline

an iron oxen cart costs more than 200 million yuan and harvesters are 4 million, which is simply unaffordable for small farmers with fragmentary arable land. It can be said that behind every small farmer, there is a strong substitute farmer. Many large harvesters, in addition to substitute farming in the original area, will follow the rice maturity season and harvest all the way north for five 3. days.

Li Hanji belongs to small and medium-sized contract tillers and only assists neighboring areas. He can bake about 30 tons of rice a day, which is one tenth of that of large factories. However, businesses of his size have gradually declined in recent years.

He said with emotion that there used to be more than a dozen small and medium-sized grain baking plants in the neighboring areas, but with the development of large-scale machinery, the amount of grain entering the valley at one time increased, the grain baking plants needed to update their equipment, and many small and medium-sized old plants quit.

However, what bothers him most is the labor problem. The work in the grain baking farm is heavy, no workers can be found, and the next generation is not willing to take it. His seedling farm is also not as good as large factories can invest in automatic conveying equipment, and it has to rely on manpower to carry it. The problem of lack of work is a vicious circle. He said bluntly that if he cannot do it one day, he may stop it directly.

Source: BusinessWeek | Release Date: August 13, 2015 | Editor: Zhai Tianchang