As mechanical cotton picking approaches, where is the way out for cotton pickers?
Around National Day, Xinjiang, China's largest cotton-rich production area, welcomed more than 600,000 cotton-picking workers from more than a dozen provinces and regions including Henan, Sichuan, Shandong and Ningxia.
As in previous years, 1/6 of the cotton-picking army converging at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains from all directions came from Ningxia.
What is different from previous years is that in this year's cotton-picking season, because the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps fully promoted mechanical picking, manual cotton picking has been affected. For people who have long relied on cotton picking to improve their lives, where will they go for labor services in Xinjiang in the future? What measures will government departments take in response? The reporter conducted interviews on this.
Mechanized cotton picking is the general trend
On October 19, at Chaoyang Farm in Hongqi Township, Wusu City, Tacheng Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Ma Putao, a young Hui woman from Longde County, Guyuan City, Ningxia, met in the cotton field the vice mayor of Guyuan City, who had come to express sympathy to cotton-picking workers. “I came here on September 2, and as of today, I have picked 6.6 tons of cotton.” As she spoke, she did not stop the work in her hands. Together with her at this farm picking cotton were 520 other cotton-picking workers from poor mountainous areas of Ningxia. Cotton-picking income sustained over more than ten years has already accounted for more than 1/3 of their average annual total income.
Ouyang Deming, the owner of the farm where Ma Putao was staying, told the reporter that of the 6,000 mu of cotton fields he operates, 4,000 mu are used for cotton seed, so there are relatively high requirements for picking, which is also the reason more than 600 people are hired to pick cotton each picking season. “On some other farms, because mechanical picking has been promoted over a large area, demand for cotton-picking workers has clearly decreased, and their income is certain to be affected.” Ouyang Deming said.
“In 2014, the cotton sown area of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps was 9.0139 million mu, and the mechanically picked area exceeded 70% of the total cotton area, and is expected to break through 6.3 million mu, setting a record high.” introduced Yang Qiu of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
Chen Guohua, head of the propaganda section of the Corps' 7th Division 124th Regiment adjacent to Chaoyang Farm, offered an extended interpretation of this: “It is an indisputable fact that mechanized cotton picking has affected traditional cotton-picking workers.”
“The 124th Regiment has 60,000 mu of cotton fields. In previous years it needed 6,000 cotton-picking workers, and in the year with the greatest demand it needed more than 8,000. Starting last year, more than 20,000 mu of cotton fields shifted to mechanical picking, and the number of cotton-picking workers dropped to 4,000. Manual cotton picking brings an average income of 2 yuan per kilogram. Calculated at a single-yield of 400 kilograms per mu of cotton field, the manual picking cost is 800 yuan. Although one cotton picker costs more than 2 million yuan, its production efficiency is high. Mechanically picked cotton costs 0.55 yuan per kilogram, and mechanically picking one mu of cotton field requires only 220 yuan. Therefore, production efficiency determines that mechanical picking gradually replacing manual picking is an inevitable trend.” Chen Guohua said.
The transformation of cotton-picking workers brings renewed vitality
“In fact, cotton field management is also facing transformation and upgrading.” Ouyang Deming believes that as the process of agricultural modernization continuously accelerates, the entire field management process of cotton sowing, soil and water conservation, weeding and pesticide application is in great need of professional and technical personnel. “Chaoyang Farm employs 40 workers year-round, 7 of whom are professional and technical personnel, and their average annual income is more than 80,000. 'Cotton-picking champion' Ma Putao, in a cotton-picking season of more than two months, earns no more than more than 20,000 yuan at most. By comparison, technical labor export not only brings more income, but is also stable.”
In fact, many people who have gone out to work year after year to earn money have also realized that relying on simple manual labor to increase income is already outdated. There are opportunities amid the “crisis” of labor transformation for cotton-picking workers, and among them there is no lack of successful people who seized business opportunities and achieved a “dazzling turnaround.”
In Huxi Village, Shanghudi Township, Shawan County, Tacheng Prefecture, farmer Yang Yongwu from Fengzhuang Township, Pengyang County, Ningxia, and the 14 cotton-picking workers he temporarily hired were busy harvesting cotton from his contracted fields.
In 1989, Yang Yongwu came to Xinjiang as exported labor under the government's call. After several years, he felt that relying only on cotton picking could not make him rich. “In 1997, I began contracting cotton fields, starting with 30 mu, and now 135 mu. The dozen or so fellow townspeople I brought out have also achieved stable income by contracting from several dozen mu to more than 200 mu of cotton fields. Now many of us have settled in Xinjiang, not only escaping poverty, but also gradually achieving prosperity.”
Skills training is the long-term solution
“Starting as a cotton-picking worker, and now taking on a 1.8-million-yuan welding project, it was the transfer employment skills training organized by the government that changed my life.” Chen Hai, a Hui migrant worker of Xiji origin in Ningxia who has already settled in Urumqi, spoke with deep emotion when talking about his life transformation.
In 2004, under the guidance of government-organized labor export, Chen Hai came to Xinjiang to pick cotton. In 2009, upon hearing that the labor department was opening a professional skills training class for welding in Xiji, Chen Hai signed up to study and, after practical operation and assessment, obtained a welder's qualification certificate. With this certificate, he began working as a welder in Urumqi and gradually opened up the market. Today he has become a “capable man” leading 14 welders together to contract projects, with a stable annual income of more than 100,000 yuan.
Ma Dekui, a farmer from Shiyang Village, Touying Township, Yuanzhou District, Guyuan City, Ningxia, is also someone who has tasted the benefits of skills training. “When I first went to Xinjiang to work in 1996, because I lacked skills, I could only do rough work. In the winter of 2004 I attended skills training organized in my hometown and obtained a Level 5 occupational grade certificate as a bricklayer, and my income began to rise gradually. In 2007 I attended training in my hometown again and obtained a labor service broker qualification certificate. In 2010 I registered and established a labor dispatch company, and became a 'boss' myself. Now I contract roadbed and side ditch projects in Xinjiang. The company has more than 200 migrant workers of Guyuan origin, with an average monthly income of more than 4,000 yuan per person, and my annual income is also around 700,000 yuan.”
Ma Jie of Urumqi Xinyue Automobile Company is a “boss” of Xiji origin who started out picking cotton and now operates 36 buses and has opened 6 routes from Urumqi to Yinchuan and other places. “Xinjiang has a great situation for entrepreneurship and employment. Now our company urgently needs 80 automobile maintenance technicians, but it is temporarily difficult to recruit them. I hope my hometown Ningxia will train and export more skilled talent.” Ma Jie said.
Yang Zhirong, director of the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Guyuan City, Ningxia, introduced that, adapting to the new situation of mechanized cotton picking in Xinjiang and reduced demand for cotton-picking workers, Guyuan City changed the previous “government-led” labor export into a new mechanism for increasing farmers' income featuring “government guidance, departmental services, and leadership by labor intermediaries and brokers,” highlighting skills training for migrant workers and strengthening the construction of transfer employment bases and the development of labor intermediary organizations and labor broker teams. In the first 9 months of this year, the whole city achieved transfer employment for 306,600 laborers and realized wage income of 3.043 billion yuan.