In June, the State Council, the Chinese Government's cabinet, issued a plan to accelerate agricultural and rural modernization during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). The plan seeks to accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas to drive Chinese modernization, and it has identified key tasks and policy measures for this purpose during the period.
Women in China are truly "holding up half the sky" in advancing agricultural and rural modernization. With their wisdom and tenacity, they have been injecting sustained momentum into rural development.
This article focuses on the story of the Women's Agricultural Machinery Service Team from Puyang Farm, in Hegang, a city in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.
The Women's Agricultural Machinery Service Team, from Puyang Farm, in Hegang, a city in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, was recognized as a National Civilized Women's Post in March. What made the team stand out? "We are sisters, working together with a shared aspiration, serving farmers and agricultural production," says Du Chunyan, head of the team.
Du was appointed head of the team after she won the top prize during an agricultural-machinery operation skills competition, at Puyang Farm, in March 2022. Since then, she and her team have made achievements in operating agricultural machinery, a field once dominated by men. By driving heavy machines, the team's members play their roles throughout the entire agricultural process — plowing, sowing, pest control and harvest.
The members are united, and they are always ready to help each other. If one is too busy to take care of her family's elderly and/or children during harvest season, other members of the team will lend a hand. If a new member has difficulty learning to operate the machines, experienced members will give one-on-one instruction.
The farm often organizes sessions to help the members learn agricultural policies, hone practical skills and exchange working experiences. Modernization of agriculture provides opportunities for young people to use their knowledge, and their expertise.
Du was born (in 1991) and raised on Puyang Farm, which is managed by Beidahuang Group, China's major grain-production base. From the time she was a child, Du dreamed of becoming a tractor driver, after she learned about Liang Jun, China's first woman tractor driver. At 16, Du realized her dream, when she began driving her family's tractor in the fields. That only whetted her appetite. She then took every opportunity to practice operating the tractor, and she also learned how to maintain and repair various machines.
Du has since obtained the licenses required to operate tractors and plant-protection drones, and she has become skilled in operating machines equipped with the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.
"Decades ago, our predecessors overcame great hardships, and they transformed the vast barren land in Beidahuang, the northern part of Heilongjiang Province, into a major grain-production area. Today, we carry forward their spirit — self-reliance, hard work, pioneering and dedication — by pursuing crop-yield increases through science and technology," she says.
Du and her teammates have received skills training, organized by women's federations, at various levels, in recent years. "The training sessions have covered smart-machine operations, agriculture-related laws and regulations, protection of family-related rights and interests and rural governance. The sessions have enabled us to provide better services to women," Du says. More importantly, the federations have encouraged women farmers, and women entrepreneurs, to realize their own value through hard work. That has strengthened Du's determination to lead her sisters in learning skills, developing their own businesses and creating better lives.
"The plan to accelerate agricultural and rural modernization during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, issued in June this year, set targets, including raising grain-production capacity, achieving breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields involving agricultural machinery and equipment, and improving our ability to ensure food security. The targets point out the direction of work for frontline workers," Du says.
During the next few years, Du plans to focus on three things — skills enhancement, talent cultivation and standard planting technology promotion — necessary to pool women's strength in raising capacity of grain production.
To help members improve their operational skills, the team works with the farm's technological department to organize regular training sessions, especially on the operation and maintenance of smart harvesters, unmanned pest-control equipment and machines equipped with the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.
To improve the precision and efficiency of their work, the members have also learned the latest technologies, including land-leveling and unmanned-machine-operation technologies.
To promote standard planting technologies, Du and her teammates teach women farmers and land contractors practical skills in selecting seeds, managing fields and using machines in an efficient way.
"Many women want to plant crops, but they lack knowledge and skills about machine operations and modern planting concepts," Du says. The team will organize more classes, in the fields, to help farmers reduce production costs and increase output of grain production.
The team spares no effort in cultivating women agricultural machine operators. Many rural women, who previously stayed at home to take care of their families, and young women, who have returned to their hometowns for work, have joined the team.
The team provides free machine-operation and field-management services, especially at critical phases, to help secure harvests.
As new farmers, Du and her teammates have realized their personal value, and they have contributed their strengths to ensuring food security, and to promoting all-around rural revitalization on black soil.
Photos from Interviewee
(Women of China English Monthly September 2026)
Editor: Wang Shasha
