Wheat harvesters gather together, wash clothes and prepare supper before darkness falls.

A bird's-eye view of the fields.

  

Harvesters bargain with local farmers.

Qu Changcheng and his wife call home. They miss their 12-year-old son.

Farmers don't rely simply on GPS calculators to measures the area of their field: They make their own measurements. Photos: CFP

  

 Another harvest season, and fields of rippling wheat under sunny-blue skies are waiting to be reaped. But where farmers once worked these fields with sickle and scythe, over time the process has become industrialized.

Now, each May across southwest and northeast China, the roar of combine-harvesters announces which fields have ripened.

Qu Changcheng, 39, from Fengyang, Anhui, has worked as a harvester for seven years. This year, he and around 2,000 others from his hometown started their journey in late April, heading to Sichuan then turning northward - by the time he will arrive home in June, his own fields will be ready for harvest.

Until then, Qu's combine-harvester will be both his home and his workplace. These men will together carve a V-shape across China over 5,000 kilometers long, as they "follow the wheat," offering themselves as freelance farmers at the best possible price.

But competition is fierce, as demonstrated by license plates from Anhui, Henan and Jiangsu provinces all jostling for business. Sometimes, Qu has to skip breakfast, and drive early to the fields and valleys to solicit customers. He can expect to earn around 35 yuan per mu (one sixth-acre) and, only as the sun sets around 7:00 pm, can Qu and his wife expect to sit down by their combine and take their first meal of the day.

Global Times