Still planting rice by hand? Tula Guest and rice contract-cultivation labor exchange and mutual aid

Everyone knows there are farmers in the countryside, but the contract-cultivation operators behind the farmers remain unfamiliar. The Yilan farmers' organization "Tula Guest" once held a hand-harvesting rice experience and discovered that some friends really thought all farmers harvested by hand. Only then did they realize how little the outside world knows about contract-cultivation operators. Together with local small farmers, they began deliberately filming videos and taking photos, introducing contract-cultivation operators' work on Facebook. In this year's first crop season, they even formed a "farm aid team" to take part in operators' seedling raising, grain drying and other work, reviving the spirit of "labor exchange" from farming households of the past.

"You back me, so I'll back you"

At seven in the morning, the harvester rumbled through "Tula Guest's" field, golden rice falling one by one into the harvester's bin. Just as they worried the truck might not bear the weight of the rice, Li Hanqi drove up in a 3.5-ton blue truck and stopped majestically at the edge of the field, staging a "hero saves the beauty" scene.

Li Hanqi is the contract-cultivation operator working with the friendly small farmer organization Tula Guest. From seedling raising, field preparation, grain drying to rice milling, he handles it all himself. This year, Tula Guest member Wu Shaowen began going with several environmentally friendly small farmers to help at his seedling farm and grain-drying yard, easing the long-troubling labor shortage.

The night before, Li Hanqi knew Wu Shaowen was going to drive a 1.5-ton truck to haul the grain. He said nothing at the time, but after 6 the next morning he called to ask about the harvest time, then showed up at the field dusty from travel, smiling as he said that if this yield were loaded onto their truck, the wheels would burst and the tires would blow out. "Anyway, you back me, so I'll back you!"

The heroes behind friendly small farmers

Wu Shaowen said that contract-cultivation operators are actually the foundation of the countryside, yet many people overlook them. In recent years much of the spotlight has focused on friendly small farmers, but small farmers simply cannot afford large machinery and rely entirely on contract-cultivation operators for help. Moreover, the cost of helping small farmers is much higher than for conventional farming, so he hopes to use labor exchange to help contract-cultivation operators ease their labor problems.

Although Li Hanqi said that cultivating newcomers is not easy and small farmers can mostly only do simple work, so someone still has to carry on the tradition, Wu Shaowen believes this kind of assistance is also building relationships between new farmers and the local area, letting Li Hanqi know that farmers and contract-cultivation operators are not merely a cash-on-delivery relationship, but partners and friends.

"Interestingly, although everyone calls him a contract-cultivation operator, in fact he was the one who raised the seedlings at the start, and in the end he was also the one who dried the grain. Maybe in his eyes, we are the ones doing contract cultivation." Wu Shaowen said with feeling that when new farmers enter the countryside, they must build relationships with the local area. The efforts of contract-cultivation operators are often overlooked, and he hopes that in this way more people will come to know this strong backing behind the small farmers.