Last ride of the vegetable growers

Source:Global Times Published: 2012-12-25 20:04:05

Vegetable growers hurry to set up shop after getting off the train. Photo: CFP
Farmers rush to catch the train to downtown Wuchang, a district of Wuhan in Hubei Province, with loads of vegetables. Photo: CFP
 
A woman sorts out her vegetables on the train. Photo: CFP
A woman sorts out her vegetables on the train. Photo: CFP
 
Farmers rush to catch the train to downtown Wuchang, a district of Wuhan in Hubei Province, with loads of vegetables. Photo: CFP
Vegetable growers hurry to set up shop after getting off the train. Photo: CFP
 
Farmers sell their vegetables on the street. Photo: CFP
Farmers sell their vegetables on the street. Photo: CFP

The sun has not yet risen over a village outside Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province. The old Liu couple have awoken, rushed to their fields, and begun collecting vegetables with flashlights. They are hurrying before catching a train which will ferry them and their produce to downtown Wuchang, a district of Wuhan.

An outdated green train with six carriages, with no heating or refrigeration units, carries hundreds of farmers back and forth in and around Wuchang.

Loaded with fresh vegetables and other agricultural products, it takes the farmers from their villages into the center of the city and its marketplaces.

The train was originally designed to help railway workers commute. But gradually, it was taken over by the farmers. To better serve them, the original 1.5 yuan ($0.24) ticket price was canceled and it now remains free.

Zhong Shourong, the train's conductor for the last six years, has already become well-acquainted with some of her regular vegetable vendor passengers. But, she says with a tinge of sadness, the passengers are becoming fewer and older.

"The city expanded, the land was expropriated, farmland dwindled and vegetable farmers were reduced as a result," said Liu, now in his 70s. Liu's family only farms a 667-square-meter plot of land and both his sons have gone away to work in the city.

The village used to have over 300 denizens who grow and sell vegetables, but this has plummeted to only 100, with nearly all those remaining in their 50s or above.

Incomes are an ever-present worry. For each 50-kilogram load of vegetables, they can take home 50 to 100 yuan ($16).  

"Farmwork is no longer attractive to young people. We, the old individual vegetable farmers, will step down from the stage of history one day soon," Liu sighed.

According to the China Statistical Yearbook 2010, nearly 20 villages were disappearing each day due to fast-speed urbanization and population migration.

Feng Jicai, chairman of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Society, recently put the disappearing number at a much-higher 80 to 100 a day. He said a total of 900,000 villages disappeared over the past decade.

Global Times

  



Posted in: China, In-Depth

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