Document No. 1 carries a farmer's hopes

"To pursue agricultural modernization, the quality of 'people' is crucial. What way is there to attract young and middle-aged people back? With them, it's easier to pursue modernization!" A farmer told the reporter.

In Changping Village, Hetu Township, Nanchuan District, Chongqing, Wang Wei, chairman of the Panyuan Kiwifruit Cooperative, pulled out two "novel items" for the reporter: one was a share certificate for farmers' land equity, and the other was a blood pressure monitor.

"The farmers are too old; I can't go without carrying a blood pressure monitor." Wang Wei said that although the cooperative lets farmers join with their land contract management rights as equity, it still cannot hold on to the hearts of young people. The cooperative has transferred more than 800 mu of land, and the hired farmers have an average age of over 65, with the oldest being 81, and at least seven or eight suffering from high blood pressure. "We have to measure blood pressure before they go into the fields, for fear something will happen to them."

The reporter saw dozens of white-haired elderly people hunched over, fertilizing and weeding the kiwifruit. Wang Wei said that being able to find elderly people to work was already considered good. "The cooperative is willing to pay three or four times the wages to hire strong laborers in their thirties or forties, but not a single person is willing to come."

In Henan, Yu Guilin is also worried about this. "Hiring a temporary worker costs 100 yuan a day, all are over 55, and the oldest are 70, and they increasingly cannot keep working."

"The farmers are too old, and new technologies and new equipment cannot be promoted... Elderly people have a weak ability to accept new things and are not highly motivated to learn, which has already become a major problem." said Zhang Cunbin, director of the village committee of Kaizhu Village, Zhaojia Subdistrict, Kai County, Chongqing.

Elderly farmers have also caused the traditional "intensive cultivation" in some places to be gradually replaced by "lazy farming." Sun Changwu, a major grain grower in Linjiang Town, Kai County, Chongqing, has to hire more than 30 people during the busy farming season. He said: "In the past, when farmers planted rice, after the autumn harvest they had to plow two or three times to preserve soil moisture and water for the next spring plowing. But now they simply cannot afford the time; the labor intensity is too great, and older people cannot handle it, so this yield-increasing measure can only be abandoned."