Yuan Longping's Rice Breaks the Ton-Per-Mu Barrier; County Party Secretary Threshes Rice Himself
On the morning of October 10, the yield measurement results organized by the Ministry of Agriculture showed that the fourth-phase super rice in Xupu County, Hunan Province, led by Academician Yuan Longping, set a new record of 1026.7 kg per mu. This result was obtained through on-site scientific measurement in the contiguous experimental field of 102.6 mu of hybrid rice “Y Liangyou 900” in Hongxing Village, Hengbanqiao Township, Xupu County.
From 500 kg per mu to 700 kg per mu and then to breaking the ton-per-mu grain barrier, Academician Yuan Longping's super rice project has steadily increased yields over the past decade or more. This good news has made many Chinese people feel excited and gratified. And just a few days earlier, the scene of Meng Han, Party Secretary of Xupu County, helping a farmer thresh rice in the field also attracted considerable attention.
According to online reports, in early October, while working in the countryside, Meng Han passed through Huangmaoyuan Township, saw an elderly man threshing rice by hand, and walked straight into the field to help until the rice-threshing task for one plot was completed.
Academician Yuan Longping breaking the ton-per-mu barrier and County Party Secretary Meng Han threshing rice may appear to be two unrelated, independent phenomena, but in fact they have an internal logical connection. At a time when industrialization and urbanization are surging and agriculture is increasingly marginalized, and in an era when food security is increasingly becoming a prominent issue in China, observing these two matters from the perspective of political economy can actually yield many insights.
As the author, who was born in rural Hunan and personally did more than ten years of rice-field farm work, I am willing first to share with everyone the key points of the rice-threshing job.
Rice grows at the top of the rice plant, a grass. To harvest rice grain, one must find a way to separate the grain from the straw. In Hunan, the traditional method is “banhe”, that is, threshing rice by hand. Its essential motion is to grip a bundle of about 200 rice stalks tightly with both hands and vigorously strike it against the edge of a wooden frame used to collect rice grain, so that the rice separates from the straw and falls into the wooden frame. A bundle of rice generally needs to be repeatedly struck with force about ten times before the process is basically completed, and one mu of field has about 25,000 rice clumps, which must be divided into 2,500 bundles for striking. In other words, after threshing one mu of rice, one must continuously strike with force about 25,000 times. The labor intensity can be imagined.
Later, with the spread of mechanization, the “threshing machine” with a toothed drum greatly reduced the intensity of rice threshing, but one shortcoming of this machine is a relatively high rice loss rate. When threshing machines had already become widespread in most places, a small number of areas still used manual rice threshing because they could not afford the equipment or for other reasons, such as avoiding rice loss.
Agricultural experts told “Jieren Observation” that in experimental fields such as Academician Yuan Longping's, because yield measurement is needed, every effort must be made to achieve “every grain returned to the granary” for precise calculation, so manual rice threshing is often one of the harvesting methods used. It is precisely this scientific habit that makes many farmer friends in Xupu County more willing to choose manual rice threshing.
For a middle-aged man like Meng Han, Party Secretary of Xupu County, completing the threshing of one plot of rice from beginning to end is indeed not an easy task. First, this is a high-intensity physical labor. Some people may suspect Meng Han of “putting on a show”, but I think that if he really wanted to put on a show, there would be no need to foolishly choose this kind of “rough work”, and to keep at it for several hours; second, this is also an act of compassion. When Meng Han saw the old farmer working alone in the field, he went down into the field to help. I believe this was first of all out of a heart of concern for the people.
The key issue is even more that Meng Han, as a county party secretary, going into the field to participate in rice threshing was also a truly “foundation-oriented” task.
In recent years, under the great tide of industrialization and urbanization, many grassroots officials, from county to township and even village cadres, have unconsciously abandoned agriculture and turned to attracting investment. “Jieren Observation” has seen many county party secretaries. They are busy every day, either moving among all kinds of dinner parties entertaining investors, or traveling around other developed areas for “inspection tours”, or wandering amid land development plans. To be fair, most of them also want to bring development opportunities to the places where they serve, attempting to change the local appearance through bold industrial projects, real estate development, and urban construction.
But it must be pointed out that it is precisely within this grand narrative of “big projects, big plans, big investment” that the “three rural issues” in many places have been marginalized. Farmers have become ignored people, agriculture has become a marginal industry, and rural areas have become forgotten corners.
In China's political structure, a county party secretary is the head of a county, and the core reason why a place is called a “county” rather than a “city” is that the local rural population, agricultural industry, and rural area account for the mainstream of that place. In other words, a county party secretary should be the first person responsible for and the first person attentive to the “three rural issues”.
The Party Secretary of Xupu County, Hunan, walked into the field to thresh rice. Regardless of whether there was an element of putting on a show, this is something worthy of full affirmation. On the one hand, his rice threshing and Academician Yuan Longping's ton-per-mu experiment formed a logical echo of scientific research, sowing, and harvesting. More importantly, as an important experimental base for China's super rice ton-per-mu fields, the fact that Xupu's county party secretary could walk into the field and seriously endure hardship for a while is itself the best kind of political response and behavioral demonstration.
Regarding this behavior of Meng Han, I do not want to elevate it to a political height such as the “mass line” in evaluation. I only want to say that China needs elite scientists like Yuan Longping, who is solidly rooted in the fields and tirelessly seeks security for more than a billion Chinese people, and it also needs more county party secretaries like Meng Han, who are clear-headed, act appropriately, and do not forget their true colors.