Learning to Grow Paddy Rice in the Village: 2.6 mu of Ecological Rice and a Loss of Nearly 5,000 Yuan

What happens when an “expert” who has researched agricultural policy for 20 years decides to roll up his trousers, go down to the field, and personally plant 2.6 mu of paddy rice?

Chen Jingjing, who has received formal training at an agricultural university and has long been engaged in rural construction research, made a “counterintuitive” decision this year: to put down roots in Qingshan Village, Hangzhou, and take on a full season of genuine ecological paddy rice growing.

This is by no means a superficial conceptual experiment; it is a head-on confrontation between ideal and reality.

Chen Jingjing is not entirely unfamiliar with growing paddy rice. He has spent almost his whole life working with the countryside. Born in a small mountain village in central Zhejiang, he grew up in a family that practised sericulture, grew paddy rice, and processed honeyed jujubes. But actually working in the field to grow paddy rice was the first time in his life.

From choosing the land and raising seedlings to processing and logistics, every stage gave this “veteran expert” a brutal reality check. To insist on not using herbicide, he paid astonishing labour costs. To pursue a better taste, he chose sun drying, only to be tormented by complicated labour organisation. At the same time, seeds, organic fertiliser, chemical fertiliser, combine harvester costs, hired labour, transport, drying, and packaging… the invoices piled up one by one.

At the end of last October, the paddy rice was finally harvested, and Chen Jingjing ate the milled rice he had grown. But once calculated, the production cost of each catty of milled rice was a staggering 30-something yuan, and the entire season resulted in a loss of nearly 5,000 yuan.

What exactly happened in the meantime? This podcast episode comes from an in-person sharing session, in which Chen Jingjing candidly unpacked this heavy but real “farming ledger” for everyone. It is much more like an extremely honest lesson in contemporary Chinese agriculture:

Ideal versus reality: Why does “no chemical fertiliser or pesticide” make no headway in a real agricultural system?
The power of structure: How do the logic of land rent, grain subsidy, and the division of labour in modern agriculture step by step “teach a lesson” to idealists?
The restructuring of relationships: What structural changes are taking place in the relationship between modern farmers and the land?
Questions of value: In a society where “loneliness and acceleration” coexist, what exactly does it mean for one person to grow grain personally?

In this episode, there are no platitudes, only unflinching details, confusion, and reflection. If you have ever felt drawn to “returning to the countryside” or “throwing yourself into organic farming”, this in-depth retrospective on land and food might make you reconsider that impulse.

Qingshan Village, about a half-hour drive from central Hangzhou, is the city dwellers’ backyard and the experimental field where Chen Jingjing began putting his agricultural ideal into practice.

The life of a contemporary new tenant farmer: where do the fields come from?

When it came to actually farming, he had to turn to the village farmers for advice on every aspect.

Most of those still farming in the village are older people in their 50s and 60s.

When friends came to the field to help harvest the paddy rice, after half an hour everyone was finding it hard to keep going, reaching the limit of their longing for a pastoral idyll…

Seeds, soil, fertiliser, finished products: the inputs and outputs of growing paddy rice.

For the first time, Chen Jingjing experienced firsthand how countless production stages stand between paddy rice and milled rice.

Chen Jingjing itemised his 2025 costs for growing paddy rice; even excluding his own labour costs, it is still a loss-making venture.

The work note Uncle Shen Jinhuo gave Chen Jingjing.

A meal at Uncle Shen Jinhuo’s home. Uncle Shen is 74 this year, a former group leader of Lisan Village with extensive experience in agricultural production, and he provided technical guidance for the 2.6 mu of paddy rice. After his earnest and persistent persuasion, Chen Jingjing used compound fertiliser.

Guest of This Episode

Chen Jingjing

Graduated from China Agricultural University, a practitioner with 20 years of rural construction experience, he has worked for years in villages across different regions, and is dedicated to research on agricultural and rural reform and the practice of rural revitalisation.

Host of This Episode

Xiaodan

Former agricultural journalist; in 2026, has 20 square metres of land to farm.

Timeline

00:46 From formal training at China Agricultural University to entering rural construction, and then settling in Qingshan Village, how did Chen Jingjing end up growing paddy rice in the village?

04:28 An “art village” filled with designers, environmental organisations, and new villagers—can it still grow grain seriously?

11:15 A person who has worked in rural construction for 20 years—why, when growing paddy rice himself for the first time, did he decide “not to follow convention”?

11:41 Of all the possible things to try, why did he choose the hardest, most exhausting, and least profitable option—paddy rice?

15:47 Chinese agriculture is shifting from “smallholder imagination” toward a real-world structure of large-scale farmers, mechanisation, and subsidy-driven practice.

19:22 Contemporary new tenant farmer: why do good fields never get around to “people who want to farm seriously”, and exactly where does land transfer get stuck?

22:52 From raising seedlings and rice transplanting to harvesting, a 2.6 mu paddy field is backed by an entire division-of-labour network.

30:54 When organic fertiliser was really delivered to the field, had idealism taken its first direct lesson from reality?

32:00 Using no chemical fertiliser and no pesticide—is that holding to principle, or avoiding responsibility for yield?

32:32 Manual harvesting, paddy rice carried on the shoulder—the body’s limits arrive faster than principles.

32:41 After a hard year of producing “good rice”, why did nine people come to “collect rice straw” but only two wanted to buy rice?

35:04 From paddy drying to rice milling, every step in turning paddy into milled rice quietly swallows costs.

36:34 Once the true cost of a catty of milled rice is worked out, can “ecology”, “ideal”, and “persistence” still hold up?

45:37 Is this a failed agricultural experiment, or a necessary act of firsthand engagement?

46:22 Once you have really grown a season of paddy rice, your relationship with the land, the villagers, and the village will be completely transformed.

53:07 After putting in so much and losing so much, will you still farm next year?

Guest of This Episode

Host of This Episode

Published by Foodthink