Typhoon Arrives Right at Harvest Time: Lazy Farmer's Farming Journal 1

Text / Lu Yaozhong

In the past, when a tropical depression formed over the seas off the Philippines, I, as someone who does not farm, did not feel much about it. But now, watching the rice gradually grow and ripen, my mood has gradually tensed up too. Not only do I keep an eye on the weather report every day, but looking at the weed-choked field, I keep calculating in my mind just how much harvest there will be.

A typhoon is coming, right in this harvest season, and an invisible restlessness and anxiety, like a dense, thick dark cloud drifting into a clear, blazingly sunny sky, has shrouded the entire farming village. Every farming household wants to harvest quickly before the Lord of Heaven starts playing tricks, so that even if prices are low, they can at least have peace of mind.

The harvesting crew's appointment schedule is fully booked from morning to night, and my natural-farming field is, relatively speaking, not that important. With the uncles and aunties from the neighboring households urging me again and again, even the lazy farmer has become a little anxious.

"Ah Zhong! We're going to harvest your field this morning, so go collect those bird-scaring things in the field." Uncle Shumu said on the other end of the phone.

Phew! It was finally my turn. I hurriedly grabbed my camera and dashed to the rice field. Today the results of four months of laziness would finally be revealed. When the neighboring uncles saw what was happening, they all gathered around. The rice combine harvester was like electric hair clippers, mowing from the outer edge toward the center in order, as if shaving the messy hair of a "Brother Sharp" into a buzz cut.

Just how big the harvest would be was what the neighboring uncles cared about most.

"I'd say, about 5 or 6 hundred jin." Uncle Murong said.

"If there are 4 hundred jin, that's already good." the chief secretary said.

Conventional farming usually yields about 1500 to 2000 jin. The neighboring uncles and aunties, based on their many years of experience, all started placing their bets.

"What we harvest today probably won't even be enough to pay for the rice harvesting." said Uncle Shumu, who was harvesting the rice for me.

The landlord brother replied, "This one is organic, so the price will be better."

"I say it'll sell for thirty thousand per jin!" Uncle Murong said. "Look at the rice in this plot: slow at weeding, slow at fertilizing, slow at harvesting, so one jin has three slows (in Southern Min, the word for slow sounds the same as the word for ten thousand)."

Although the harvest from this field was not good, everyone laughed. Because the process was full of many firsts: this was the lazy farmer's first time farming, many young people's first time stepping barefoot into the mud, the village uncles' and aunties' first time seeing a field with so many weeds, and the old folks' first time hearing that someone had to pay money to come weed...

As we watch rural areas gradually decline and the government vigorously promote "rural regeneration," agriculture remains a complex problem with no easy answer. Even though the government's public grain purchase price was raised by 3 yuan per kilogram this season, farmers still cannot be seen to have increased their incomes because of it.

The lazy farmer's farming journal is an experiment in operating the rural economy by a group of young people who have long promoted community work. We believe that only by farming once from beginning to end, and carefully recording every little detail of each step, can we have enough basis for dialogue to discuss the future of the industry with farmers who have spent most of their lives farming.

Next, let us look back together at the lazy farmer's mood journal!