Tobacco Asia

Tobacco Asia 67 of land in Duntou Village and successively purchased specialized agricultural machin- ery such as trenching, deep-plowing, and ridging machines, which greatly improved production efficiency and increased the yield of crops by about 20% year-on-year per mu. These intelligent agricultural ma- chines have also made Li Qiang a well- known technological new farmer locally. His farmland planting scale has also devel- oped from the initial 20 mu to the current 101 mu, making him one of the two farm- ers in the county with a planting scale of over 100 mu. New farmers bring cultural memes to life Compared to traditional farmers, new farmers generally have a relatively high cultural level and a deep understanding of agricultural culture since most of them come from rural areas. They apply their knowledge into field management. Hu Ge, born in Hengyang county, Hengyang city, Hunan province, and graduated from Hunan Agricultural Uni- versity, resolutely contracted more than 30 mu of land and became a tobacco farmer in 2018, despite his family's dis- agreement and classmates' lack of under- standing. A young graduate who returned home to grow tobacco quickly became a topic of conversation among villagers and spread throughout the county, mak- ing Hu Gean internet celebrity. Faced with the villagers' teasing, he did not pay any attention and devoted himself to the tobacco fields. During the day, he care- fully observed the growth of the tobacco plants, and at night, based on what he had learned and summarized, he actively par- ticipated in technical training organized by the tobacco company. He humbly sought advice from local tobacco farm- ers, constantly supplemented his knowl- edge and technical shortcomings, and strictly followed the guidance of techni- cians. His tobacco fields have been desig- nated as a lean production demonstration area by Hengyang branch under China Tobacco (Commercial) Corporation. He has also been rated as a technology im- plementation demonstration household, and has become a well-known tobacco technology expert. Efforts would eventu- ally pay off. Hu Ge became the first per- son in Hengyang county to earn profits from tobacco planting that year. In 2020, the local tobacco farmers' cooperative established a comprehensive service-oriented cooperative association which needed to introduce special tech- nical management personnel. Hu Ge volunteered to lead the service team. He took the lead in establishing specialized service teams for machine farming, plant protection, curing, grading, etc. After several years of development, all tobacco farmers in Hengyang county have joined the cooperative, and the average planting All tobacco farmers in Hengyang county now joined a cooperative which helped them reach higher planting scale levels. Efforts of new farmers utilizing new farming techniques and technology have paid off. Trenching, deep-plowing, and ridging machines have greatly improved crop yield for farmers.

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