A Big Granary

A northeast China’s province drives agricultural modernization of the country.

- Zan Jifang

In late September, the peak harvest time, workers in Youyi Farm, the largest state-owned farm in China located in the vast plains north of Heilongjiang Province, were racing against time. The corn had already been harvested and the soil turned over, waiting for next year’s sowing. As the farmhands worked frantically to gather the rice, there was one noticeable difference. The laborers doing the work were not humans but an army of giant, advanced agricultural machines.

“We finished harvesting maize earlier than other places because of the large-scale use of agricultural machinery, which helped us sell our corn earlier and at a better price,” Yang Deqing, in charge of publicity in the farm’s fifth administrative zone, said proudly.

As one of the 113 farms under the Heilongjiang Farm and Land Reclamation Administration, Youyi is a pioneer in exploring agricultural modernization. The 55,400-square-km reclaimed land in Heilongjiang, better known as Beidahuang, or the Great Northern Wilderness, started to be developed in 1947.

Back then, the area was just a wide stretch of wasteland. Today, it has been transformed into the largest grain production base in China and is a leader in implementing mechanized farming and modern agriculture. The annual production can feed more than 100 million people for one year. The former wildland has become a granary of the country.

Starting from scratch

In the reclamation area, Youyi Farm, sprawling more than 1,800 square km, has a unique position: It was a pilot for mechanized agriculture and introducing the most advanced technology and machinery.

Established in 1954, the farm was one of the major development projects in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. It was set up with the assistance of the Soviet Union, which is why it was named Youyi, meaning friendship in Chinese.