Machinery Empowers Tobacco Farming in Qiubei, Weaving Rural Revitalization Story
As spring breeze sweeps over the landscapes, karst peaks loom like dark green ink wash paintings. Badaoshao Yi Ethnic Township in Qiubei County, Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, is adjacent to the Puzhehei National 5A Scenic Area. Surrounded by lotus ponds, clear water and scattered karst peaks, new agricultural machinery shuttles through the fields, writing a new chapter of technology-driven agriculture and integrated agriculture-culture-tourism development in the symbiotic picture of tobacco fields and the scenic area.
At noon, the sun bathes the fields, and the fresh soil turned up by deep tillage machines emits a moist earthy scent. Where film covering machines pass, black plastic film spreads along the ridges like dark ribbons, contrasting beautifully with the distant Puzhehei peaks and the nearby green tobacco seedlings, forming a pastoral picture empowered by technology. Tobacco farmers use new agricultural machinery to monitor operation progress, ploughing depth and film covering quality in real time, with modern farming scenes fully demonstrating the new vitality of agricultural development.
Transplanting and film covering are the key links in the promotion of mechanization in Qiubei’s tobacco-growing areas this year. In the past, tobacco seedling transplanting relied entirely on manual hole digging, seedling placing and soil covering, which was not only labor-intensive and inefficient, but also prone to damaging seedlings, affecting survival rate and uniformity. The film covering link was even more time-consuming and laborious, requiring 2 to 3 people to work together manually, with the whole process of film pulling, soil pressing and alignment taking much time and effort. It also easily led to problems such as loose film surface, incomplete coverage and insufficient edge pressing. In the windy spring weather, the film was prone to being blown up and damaged, affecting seedling growth.
In recent years, with the strong promotion of Qiubei County Tobacco Monopoly Bureau (Branch), the Badaoshao tobacco-growing area has achieved a mechanization breakthrough in seedling transplanting and film covering. Mechanized transplanting has freed tobacco farmers from heavy labor. The transplanting machines are simple to operate and practical; farmers only need to drive the transplanting equipment to complete seedling planting without bending down and squatting for a long time, which not only saves time and effort, but also greatly improves operation efficiency.
To solve the problem that “large-scale agricultural machinery cannot enter small mountain fields”, Qiubei County Tobacco Monopoly Bureau (Branch) has accurately met production needs and actively promoted small portable film covering machines. Such equipment is small in size and light in weight, can be disassembled and transported to remote mountainous areas, assembled in 10 minutes, and operated by a single person, with a daily operation area of up to 12 mu, about 10 times the efficiency of manual film covering.
“In the past, film covering in mountainous areas relied entirely on manual labor, which was not only time-consuming and laborious, but also had poor results. Now with small film covering machines suitable for mountainous terrain, many scattered plots can also achieve mechanized film covering, and the soil moisture conservation effect is more guaranteed,” said Zhang Junhua, a tobacco farmer working in the mountainous tobacco fields.
“Mechanization is the core support of agricultural modernization and a key force driving rural industrial revitalization,” said an official from Qiubei County Tobacco Monopoly Bureau (Branch). In recent years, the bureau has continuously focused on the production needs of mountainous tobacco fields, increased efforts in the adaptive improvement of agricultural machinery, promoted more small and practical mechanized production equipment to further improve the mechanization coverage rate. It has also continuously improved the agricultural machinery service system, extended service chains such as technical guidance and equipment maintenance, allowing the dividends of technology to continuously benefit the majority of tobacco farmers.
As the sun sets, the Puzhehei Lake shimmers. The mechanized operation in the tobacco fields is drawing to a close. The neat tobacco ridges and tight, flat black plastic film have witnessed the profound changes brought by mechanization to tobacco production, and reflected the tobacco farmers’ longing for a bumper harvest.
