Reality show turns young artists into influential agri-preneurs

From artists to agri-preneurs

In Become a Farmer Season 2, the 10 youths aspire to make their farming venture bigger and stronger.

According to the show's chief director Yang Changling, their ambition is primarily thanks to the skills and technologies they acquired on study tours to advanced agricultural bases in the provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Henan, and Shanxi, as well as the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, after the completion of Season 1.

The size of their farm tripled to 30 hectares. In addition to wheat and roses, which they grew last year, the young men added cash crops, including kale, rapeseed, tulips, chilli peppers, and strawberries. They expanded the fishpond and cultivated a crayfish farm.

Even though the harvest season has yet to come in mid-April, the Houdoumen youths were busy with their plans.

For example, Wang Yiheng, 20, the youngest of the 10, said he had spent several days in the kitchen experimenting with the flavors of crayfish dishes as he planned to turn the to-be-harvested crayfish into pre-cooked products. Lu Zhuo was studying rose pastry recipes and wanted to develop one that was different from those on the market. Chen Shaoxi was researching how to sell the fish properly. Zhuo Yuan was ready to harvest and process strawberries into various strawberry products. Zhao Xiaotong was considering turning the already ripe kale into freeze-dried kelp powder.

"Season 1 was mostly about how they familiarized themselves with the fields, which they may have learned bits and pieces from their parents, grandparents, books, films or TV series, just as most of today's young people," Yang, told reporters during the group interview.

"Season 2 is more about how they transform their ambition into solid actions, which is also the innovation of the new season," he added.

"Even though each of us has encountered various difficulties when we run our farm business, we aim to handle them as real entrepreneurs do," said Jiang Dunhao, 29, the oldest of the 10 participants.

Jiang had just harvested gallons of raw honey from the Italian bees he keeps and was ready to have it evaluated by a food testing laboratory before it was sold.

"We would design the packaging and ensure food safety so that we can sell our products to the general public instead of dumping them to our fans by taking advantage of the show's popularity," Jiang said.