Post-90s woman quits job in foreign trade, becomes modern farmer in E China's Zhejiang

Zhou Dan drives an agricultural machinery to plow the field. (Chinanews.com/Xiang Jing)

Two years ago, Zhou Dan, a woman born after the 1990s who once worked in foreign trade, returned home to become a modern farmer in east China's Zhejiang Province.

In recent days, Zhou has been busy preparing farmland for the spring plowing of 1,100 mu (73.33 hectares) of early-season rice.

"Farming is hard work but my father was reluctant to leave his job. I also thought that agriculture will give me a prosperous future, so I quit my job and joined my father's efforts," said Zhou, speaking of the reason why she chose to engage in agriculture.

After she returned home, Zhou established a family farm in Kaiyuan village in Shengzhou city, a county-level city in Shaoxing city, Zhejiang.

"I'm in charge of modern machinery and external affairs, my father in traditional grain growing technologies, and my mother manages the farm," Zhou said.

Zhou Dan drives an agricultural machinery to plow the field. (Chinanews.com/Xiang Jing)

Zhou learned modern farming skills, attempted to introduce crop protection drones and high-power tractors to help her do farm work, and adopted scientific methods to manage the farmland.

"We must upgrade our farming equipment in order to achieve further development for our business," Zhou said, adding that she plans to apply new technologies to promote the mechanization of the whole process of grain farming, including cultivation of rice seedlings, transplanting, harvesting and drying of the rice.

In 2022, the rice grown by Zhou and her father won the title of "High-quality rice in Shengzhou."

Zhou has been busy building a rice seedling breeding facility. She said after its completion, the facility will not only provide seedlings for her family, but will also do so for other rice growers in the locality.

Zhou Dan operates a drone to spray fertilizers in a rice field. (Chinanews.com/Xiang Jing)

At the start of 2023, Shengzhou city unveiled a series of grain subsidy policies and issued 10 million yuan ($1.46 million) in subsidies for local grain growers.

Thanks to these favorable policies, local grain growers have expanded the growing area for early-season rice to 26,000 mu, which is three times that of 2022. The local agriculture department also sent several technical service teams to early-rice plantations to help local growers with grain farming.

A technical service staff member discusses grain subsidy policies with Zhou Dan. (Chinanews.com/Xiang Jing)