“You Scored So Highly Just to Learn Rice Transplanting?” – Amid Misunderstandings and a Growing Following, an Agriculture Student Graduates

“Your father worked himself to the bone farming to send you to school, and in the end you got into university only to carry on his trade.”

“The way you’re transplanting those seedlings is an absolute disgrace to your parents.”

“Xiaoxiong is doing wonderfully, but remember to tie your hair up and stay safe.”

“Hello, my handsome boy got into the agriculture programme at XX University last year. I’d like to ask you, miss – what’s it like studying agriculture?”

……

Xiaoxiong is a postgraduate student in agriculture and also a short-video creator, using her phone to continuously document her daily life as an agriculture student. In a few of her videos that have gone viral on Douyin, fans have offered words of encouragement, passers-by have voiced doubts, and parents of college entrance exam candidates have sought advice on whether their children should apply to study agriculture.

In the past couple of years, agriculture students have become a hot topic on the internet. Some question whether they “can’t find jobs after graduating” or “can only take civil service or public-sector exams,” or that “after all those years of study, they end up going back to farm the land.” Others are curious about the rice, wheat, melons and pears that agriculture students painstakingly grow – these graceful crops and the vitality of the students who tend them are praised together.

Faced with the various debates and imaginings that swirl around the topic of agriculture students, Xiaoxiong wants to do her best to present what real student life is actually like – but that is no easy feat.

As an agriculture student who runs field trials, Xiaoxiong does not shy away from showing the hardship and breaking points of agricultural labour. Her first pinned video shows her, on a rainy evening, using a machine for straw shredding.

像 这样的辛苦时刻还有很多。但当她看到别人总是用同情怜悯的眼光看待农学生的苦，她又希望向别人传递出农学生的生命力，那是体力劳动带来的心流状态，是培育出作物的成就感，是与自然亲密接触带来的身心愉悦，是在劳动中与师门同学建立起来的深厚情谊。

On the other hand, agriculture as a discipline is not the same as agricultural labour – the ultimate goal is still research output. Jotting down data by pen and paper in a paddy field that is already hard to walk in, patiently taking samples and labelling them, terrified of compromising the accuracy of the experiment – this kind of scene may be a memory unique to agriculture students. Some people also question whether Xiaoxiong is a poor grower with low yields, to which she responds helplessly: her research focus is low-carbon agriculture and sustainable farming, and she needs to collect data on greenhouse gas emissions from paddy fields under no-fertiliser conditions.

But sometimes, Xiaoxiong doubts herself: “I’m running a field trial on one hand, and on the other I realise these technologies won’t be of much use for our future work, because we can’t even out-farm actual farmers. Our research aims to reduce carbon emissions, which does nothing for yields. Even for classmates whose research is aimed at improving yields, no agricultural company will adopt these technologies in the short term. The most common job we can find on the market is still sales rep – selling agricultural inputs like seeds, pesticides and chemical fertilisers.”

In June 2026, Xiaoxiong graduated successfully from Huazhong Agricultural University. During her job search, she developed a deeper understanding of how difficult it is to find work in agriculture. Sometimes she wonders whether there are now too many agriculture students. Are there other paths? Perhaps short videos are the most suitable self-help tool for agriculture students?

In this episode of Food Talk, we invite Xiaoxiong to chat about her experience in agriculture. From daily life as an agriculture student, to short-video entrepreneurship, to the different prospects for employment in agriculture, and the dilemmas and significance of the discipline in our era – Xiaoxiong, who has just finished her student life, has a lot to share.

If you are also curious about the lives of agriculture students, click to listen to this episode of Food Talk.

01:23 Xiaoxiong’s dual identity after seven years in agriculture: a master’s graduate from Huazhong Agricultural University, and also a short-video creator with 26,000 followers

03:44 When “a girl working in the field” becomes the key to virality – but also attracts harsh comments: “You scored so highly just to learn rice transplanting?”

05:20 Facing anxious private messages from parent fans: agriculture jobs are hard to find, the child can’t sleep, and the parent worries even more

08:10 Cyber farm owner vs. wild vlog blogger

12:37 An MCN reaches out with a fifty-fifty split and a 500,000-yuan breach-of-contract penalty

20:50 What do agriculture students actually do in the field every day? From planting rice, applying fertiliser and flooding fields to weeding and pest control – real agricultural research is far more than just “working in the fields.”

27:53 Working into the night until nine, taking notes under a street lamp; the rapeseed crop stolen three times – not even worth calling the police

33:25 So hard, so difficult – why does life as an agriculture student still seem so full of vitality?

39:06 Why do agriculture students so easily build deep bonds as fellow students in the same research group? After finishing a shift of hard work together, you find everyone looks a lot more pleasing.

52:41 The truth about employment: it’s harder for women in agriculture – starting salaries of 8,000 yuan in bioinformatics but only 5,000–6,000 in traditional open-field work?

62:10 Perhaps one day, agriculture students will also stand under the mainstream spotlight: “Xiaoxiong,” now graduated and employed, offers advice to those currently studying agriculture and those about to start – take matters into your own hands, build your skills, and don’t write your future off too soon.

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