"Were you tricked back by your parents? ”
Four years ago, when Shen Yanfen quit her white-collar job in Shenzhen and returned to her hometown to work as a farmer, an aunt in the village couldn't help but ask her.
Auntie couldn't figure out why this young and small "post-90s" girl finally walked out of the village, but returned to the countryside. "You can't carry it on your shoulders or carry it in your hands, what can you do when you go back to the countryside? ”
However, as Shen Yanfen became a "soil expert" in agricultural machinery and led the team to restore more than 3,000 acres of abandoned land, driving the villagers to increase their annual income by more than one million yuan, all doubts disappeared.
Last year, Shen Yanfen was elected as a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress and a deputy to the 13th National Congress of Chinese Women, and entered the Great Hall of the People twice.
I think it's incredible. The "new farmer" smiled and told the global reporter, "I really never thought that one day I would wear a grass hat and drive a tractor, and I would be able to go to the Great Hall of the People because of this." ”
Now, with the heavy entrustment of the villagers, she has entered Beijing again.
Everything starts from scratch.
Many people have asked Shen Yanfen the same question: Why did you choose to return to her hometown?
She always replied honestly, "It was because of my parents in the first place." ”
Her father, Shen Canxing, has been engaged in agricultural machinery services for more than 40 years, and is one of the first farmers in the local area to provide agricultural machinery services, and also took the lead in establishing a professional agricultural machinery cooperative in 2009. With the introduction of a series of policies to strengthen agriculture and benefit farmers, he came up with the idea of letting his children return to their hometowns for development.
But Shen Yanfen has her own concerns.
She studied modern business management in college, and after graduation, she worked in advertising in Shenzhen. Quitting your job and returning to your hometown means giving up your original career plan, giving up your already stable life and circle of friends, and starting from scratch.
One day in 2018, she received another ** from her father who persuaded her to go back, so she asked rhetorically: "If you let me go back, how much salary can you give me?" ”
The father was silent - he could not afford to give his daughter the same salary as in the big city.
So my father later shifted his focus and started trying to persuade my younger siblings to go back. Shen Yanfen said that her two younger brothers and two younger sisters, some of whom studied design, some of whom studied English, some of whom studied sports, and some of whom studied business administration, were all involved in agriculture, but they were all persuaded by their father one after another.
For example, in 2019, when my youngest brother graduated from college, his family persuaded him to go back to the plant protection drone business. At that time, the industry was very new, and my younger brother was more interested, so he went back as soon as he graduated. ”
Shen Yanfen with her parents, younger brothers and sisters.
The second sister is the housekeeper, the third brother is in charge of administration, the fourth sister is in charge of agricultural machinery, and the fifth brother is in charge of drones, and the eldest sister Shen Yanfen is still hesitating until she enters another year of farming.
As in previous years, my father wore the stars and the moon, sometimes even busy from early morning to early morning. And his lumbar spine is not very good, he is tired, and his waist can't straighten up.
In the past, Shen Yanfen and her mother had persuaded their father that it was better to change careers or retire than to work so hard. "Most of the people who established the cooperative more than ten years ago have changed careers, and he is still persisting. But his age has also come up after all, so why is there any need to work so hard? ”
But no matter how much he tried to persuade him, his father refused to listen. Shen Yanfen was very helpless, and later figured out that her father had devoted most of his life to this land, and he had feelings and obsessions for growing grain.
She thought that since she couldn't persuade her father and the country vigorously promoted the comprehensive revitalization of the countryside, it would be better for her to return to her hometown as her father wished, and work with her younger siblings to put the work of the cooperative on track, so that her father would not have to continue to work so hard and her mother would have to worry less.
In February 2020, Shen Yanfen officially resigned and returned to her hometown, Shihu Village, Shitan Town, Zengcheng District, Guangzhou City.
When I told my friends in Shenzhen that I was going back to the countryside to farm, they either thought I was joking or thought I was coming back on a whim for a while, and then I would go back to the big city. ”
No one knew that Shen Yanfen really wanted to do something in the countryside.
Shen Yanfen always has a bright smile.
Become a female agricultural mechanic
In Shen Yanfen's words, she has just returned to her hometown and is a little "confident".
She read some agriculture-related materials and typical development cases on the Internet, and went offline to participate in some related industry training, so she made a lot of development plans for the cooperative with her previous work experience in Shenzhen.
All kinds of rules and regulations, and a bunch of mind maps, I showed them to my father when I finished them, but he glanced at them and said that I was talking on paper, sitting in front of the computer and directing randomly. I was a little angry and thought he didn't understand. But this sentence is also like a 'slap in the face', reminding me that I have to go to the field first. ”
Later, for a long time, Shen Yanfen studied with her father.
Her father worked on agricultural machinery, and she learned to drive agricultural machinery. "For example, a tractor has only one cab and no co-pilot seat. I could only lean on the edge of the cab and squat there to observe how my father operated, how to cross this kind of pit, and how to climb that kind of slope. ”
Later, she shared her ** driving a tractor on the Internet, saying that "the girl who drives the tractor is also very domineering", which won a lot of likes. She also learned to operate harvesters and rice transplanters, and became the first batch of licensed female agricultural mechanics in Zengcheng District.
Shen Yanfen (center) works in the fields with a farm machine.
But operating agricultural machinery is only the first step.
When her father went out to run a business, she followed her, and dealing with farmers was even more of a science. "That's when I realized that my previous plan was a bit too idealistic. ”
At the same time, she also realized that her father's "old method" was not always good. "His ** is always ringing, and at least dozens of ** are looking for him a day, either the farm machine is out of order, or the pump is broken, and everything is for him to deal with. He was spinning like a spinning top. I felt that this was an unhealthy way of operating, so I proposed some more appropriate management mechanisms for this. ”
Shen Yanfen is not limited to her own "one acre and three points of land". In the process of communicating with farmers, she began to look at the local agricultural machinery service industry. In her opinion, the older generation in the industry is mostly "working alone", with limited scale and limited development.
In 2021, she led her own cooperative and joined forces with several other agricultural machinery cooperatives to establish the first agricultural machinery cooperative in Guangzhou. "Group development, on the one hand, can help our traditional agricultural machinery cooperatives to transform and upgrade, on the other hand, it can also solve the problem of agricultural machinery can not be deployed during the busy agricultural period. ”
With the integration and rational allocation of resources, the annual service area of the association exceeds 100,000 mu.
Shen Yanfen (left) and her sister Shen Xiaofen.
Shen Yanfen is also concerned about the problem of idle fields. "In recent years, because of urbanization and aging, and the fact that you can't make money by cultivating one or two acres of land, many people simply don't plough the fields. When I returned to my hometown, I saw that there was a lot of land in the countryside that was idle or inefficiently used. ”
She learned that Guangdong was promoting the recultivation and replanting of abandoned cultivated land, and introduced a series of policies to encourage intensive and large-scale circulation of land, so she led the cooperative to contract thousands of acres of wasteland. "In the first year, it is difficult to re-cultivate and replant, and some fields are abandoned all year round, and the grass is taller than people. ”
By mobilizing various large-scale agricultural machinery into the village, she and her team have turned wasteland into fertile land, driving the villagers in the surrounding four villages to increase their income.
Have you ever been to a rice field during the harvest period? Shen Yanfen asked the global figure reporter.
Without waiting for the reporter to answer, she continued: "At that time, when you stand on the edge of the field, you will see endless golden rice fields. When the wind blows, you will smell the aroma of rice. People always think that the outside world is 'poetry and distance', but at that moment, I found that there is also 'poetry and distance' when I stay in my hometown. ”
If you want to come back, you must keep it
Last year, a small incident touched Shen Yanfen a lot.
It was the harvest time, but due to the weather, the demand for drying surged. "In several bases we manage, the grain is already ripe, but because we have to wait for the schedule of the drying plant, we can't harvest it immediately. We could only watch the grain in the field become overripe little by little, and we felt very sad. ”
Later, she and her team managed to find a few drying plants that they could use. As a result, farmers say they need a drying plant, but they need a buyer even more.
After drying, they have to pull the grain back. But they didn't have the conditions to store it, so they told me at the time that they would rather lower it and sell the grain as soon as possible. ”
Shen Yanfen suddenly found that she needed to change her thinking.
Before, she always wanted to solve the problems of planting and harvesting, but this time she also thought about building a drying plant when she encountered difficulties. But that's not enough – you have to make what you grow sell, and sell well. For the farmers, a year's hard work is meaningful.
Shen Yanfen is carrying goods.
Shen Yanfen's hometown is the birthplace of silk miao rice. This rice, also known as "jasper in rice", is as fragrant and delicious as many famous rice varieties. Why not take advantage of the strength to be a silk miao rice brand?
At the end of last year, she and her team began to plan the packaging and design of the brand, and also tried to engage in online live broadcasting and rural e-commerce, hoping to open up a new path for the sales of local agricultural products through a variety of channels.
In one month, we sold 20,000 catties of silk miao rice, which can be regarded as a good start. Shen Yanfen said happily.
And behind the good results, it is inseparable from hard work. At the busiest time, Shen Yanfen and her team eat and live in the company, and the way to relax is to go to the field to drive agricultural machinery together.
But she feels that this kind of busyness is different from the busyness in Shenzhen. "Being busy in the countryside is a very down-to-earth busyness. In the words of the Internet buzzword, it is 'not an alarm clock that wakes me up, but a dream'. When I used to go to work, I felt like I was dragging my body that didn't wake up. But now, as soon as I wake up every day, I think of doing these things today, and I know that my goal is in **, and I jump up all of a sudden. ”
Shen Yanfen felt that she was originally a little introverted, but in recent years, she has become better at expressing herself.
Her short record of rural life has also influenced many young people. Some students from major universities have come all the way to her as apprentices.
They feel that the countryside has great prospects for development, and what they do is not only meaningful but also interesting. Shen Yanfen was pleased with this, but also reminded: "Agriculture is not a job that can be done overnight, it is a career that requires perseverance and long-term success." Maybe you have to stick to it for a long time and take root in it before you can see a little sprout and a little result. ”
In her opinion, some "new farmers" enthusiastically enter the agricultural field, but they can only maintain the enthusiasm for three minutes.
By the end of 2022, more than 12 million people have returned to their hometowns to start businesses, and by 2025, more than 15 million people will be employed. Such a huge group is the new force of our rural revitalization in the future, how can they really stay and better exert their kinetic energy in the countryside, which is a matter worthy of attention. ”
Therefore, at this year's National People's Congress and the National People's Congress, Shen Yanfen put forward suggestions on job security and growth incentives for "new farmers", hoping that more "new farmers" can come back and stay.
The group of 'new farmers' refers not only to young farmers who have returned to their hometowns to work in agriculture, but also to those who combine the skills of urban work in the past with rural characteristics and extend into new fields. For example, the anchors, operators, and product selectors in the rural e-commerce live broadcast room are all regarded as 'new farmers'. Shen Yanfen said.
She looks forward to more like-minded friends joining the team of "New Farmers" in the future. Let's continue to move forward together, to explore, to break through, to help farmers solve more problems, so that the countryside will become a place that everyone yearns for.
Shen Yanfen took a group photo with the members of the cooperative and their families. The painting on the wall behind it depicts the "new farmers" in the cooperative.