On the road to pig farming, a post-90s young man happily plays the role of pig dad

In China, agriculture is considered one of the toughest industries, and among its sectors, livestock farming is even tougher. But as the need for transformation and upgrading of farming models grows, more and more young people are throwing themselves into it, and many "post-90s" who have just graduated have already reached supervisor level at farms.

Peng Wenjing, 22 this year, graduated from an agricultural school in 2014 and joined the Tianxin Nucleus Pig Farm in Guiyang County, Hunan Province. Just one year later, he was promoted to supervisor of the farm's fattening barn, with 4 stockmen under him who are twice his age. Peng Wenjing gets up at 6 a.m. every day. He not only inspects the temperature and humidity in the fattening barn, but also trains thousands of piglets to eat, sleep and defecate at fixed spots.

Zhou Yangping, 25, jokingly calls himself a "pig dad." As the supervisor of the farm's farrowing house, he has to look after more than 1,800 piglets in the suckling period every month. Some are large and eat a lot, while others are too small to grab any milk. Zhou Yangping moves among the herd every day, ready at any time to adjust pens to ensure they can grow in a balanced way.

"The whole farm has more than 40 employees, and over one-third are 'post-90s,'" Gong Ziyie, general manager of the Tianxin Nucleus Pig Farm, told reporters. They all come from formal training in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. Supervisors like Peng Wenjing and Zhou Yangping can not only earn an annual salary of more than 60,000 yuan, but also have a lot of room for promotion.

Dealing with pigs all day is not easy, but for this group of "post-90s," the biggest challenge is having to work in a fully closed environment. To prevent epidemics, farms are built far away from urban areas, with food and lodging on site, and only two days off a month.

Unbearable pollution and fluctuating prices have made the transformation and upgrading of the livestock industry from backyard raisers to large-scale operations inevitable. Hunan, with more than 70 million hogs slaughtered annually, has since 2013 successively designated the main stream of the Xiangjiang River and the inner lakes of Dongting Lake as prohibited breeding areas, shutting down large numbers of small and medium-sized farms with outdated conditions. At the same time, agricultural groups represented by Wens and New Wufeng began building large numbers of modern farms.

"Unlike backyard farming, which relies on experience, large-scale farming places more emphasis on technical and standardized methods for the sake of environmental protection and epidemic prevention. In this regard, young people have more advantage in comprehension and execution." Peng Yinglin, secretary-general of the Hunan Pig Breeding Association, said, "The workforce structure in the livestock industry over the past two years can be summed up this way: 'post-90s' as supervisors, 'post-80s' as managers, and 'post-70s' as bosses."

College students in related majors, especially junior college and higher vocational graduates, have therefore become "hot commodities." A manager at a large livestock enterprise in Hunan told reporters that in March this year, they signed intention contracts with dozens of students majoring in animal epidemic prevention at a higher vocational college. Although the monthly salary reached 4,000 yuan, fewer than ten ultimately showed up, and the rest were all snapped up by enterprises outside the province.

Chu Qiongxiang, chairman of the Hunan Modern Agricultural Vocational Education Group, said that in recent years the number of graduates in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine has been less than 50 percent of demand, and many students are "reserved" by enterprises before they even graduate. Huang Hang, a graduate of the veterinary major at Anjiang Agricultural School in Huaihua City, said: "Every classmate was favored by several employers, and the choice was entirely in our hands."