‘You Scored That High Just to Learn How to Transplant Rice?’ – an Agronomy Student Graduates Amid Misunderstanding and Follower Growth

“Your father toiled in the fields to put you through school, and in the end you got into university – only to inherit his mantle.”

“Transplanting seedlings like that has cost your parents every shred of face.”

“Xiaoxiong, you’re doing brilliantly! But remember to tie your hair up – stay safe.”

“Hello, my handsome boy was admitted to xx University’s agronomy programme last year. I’d love to ask you, miss – what is studying agronomy really like?”

……

Xiaoxiong is a postgraduate student in agronomy and a short-video blogger, capturing the day-to-day life of a student of agriculture through her phone. Among her most viral videos on Douyin, fans have offered encouragement, passers-by have raised doubts, and parents of Gaokao candidates have reached out for advice on enrolling their children in agronomy.

Popular videos on Xiaoxiong’s profile.

Over the past two years, agronomy students have become a trending topic online. Some ask whether they face “difficulty finding a job after graduation” or “can only sit exams for civil service or public-institution posts”, or whether “after all those years of study, they end up back on the farm”. Others are curious about the rice, wheat, melons, fruit, pears and peaches that agronomy students painstakingly raise – these graceful crops drawing praise alongside the vitality of the students who tend them.

Faced with the debates and imaginings swirling around the life of an agronomy student, Xiaoxiong tries her best to present the real thing – but it is far from easy.

As an agronomy student running field experiments, Xiaoxiong makes no effort to hide the exhaustion and breakdowns of agricultural labour. Tap on her first pinned video and there she is, shredding straw with a machine on a rainy evening.

Beside a pitch-dark paddy, Xiaoxiong works alone, rushing to shred the straw. Because the task is urgent, tears still glisten at the corners of her eyes. In the empty paddies the roar of the machine seems deafening; she calmly stuffs her ears with tissue paper.

Moments of hardship like this come around often. But when she sees others regarding an agronomy student’s struggles with nothing but sympathy and pity, she wants to pass something on to them instead: the vitality of a life in agriculture – the flow that physical labour brings, the quiet triumph of raising a crop, the joy to mind and body of close contact with the natural world, and the deep bonds forged with lab-mates through shared toil.

Xiaoxiong, mid-transplant.

On the other hand, agronomy is not the same thing as farm labour; the ultimate goal is still research. Recording data with pen and paper in a paddy that is already difficult to wade through, sampling and labelling patiently, terrified of compromising the accuracy of an experiment – that is a scene perhaps unique to the memory of an agronomy student. Some have even questioned whether Xiaoxiong is any good at growing things or complained about low yields. For her part, she is somewhat at a loss, because her research focuses on low-carbon agriculture and sustainable farming: she needs to collect data on greenhouse gas emissions from paddy fields under no-fertiliser conditions.

Xiaoxiong collecting greenhouse gas samples in the paddy. Her field is Crop Cultivation and Farming Systems, with a specific research focus on low-carbon agriculture and sustainable farming. Put simply, her work adjusts variables such as fertiliser dosage and planting density to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from rice cultivation.

But sometimes Xiaoxiong questions herself: “While I’m running field experiments, I also realise these techniques won’t have much use in our future careers – we can’t grow as well as real farmers, the research outcomes are meant to cut carbon emissions and do nothing for yields. Even for classmates whose research aims to boost yields, no agricultural company is likely to apply those technologies in the short term. The jobs we’re most likely to find on the market are still in sales – going out to sell seed, pesticides, chemical fertiliser and other agricultural inputs.”

In June 2026, Xiaoxiong graduated smoothly from Huazhong Agricultural University. During her job search, she came to understand more deeply just how hard employment is for agronomy graduates. She sometimes wonders: are there simply too many agronomy students today? Are there other paths? Perhaps short-video creation is the best tool an agronomy student has to pull herself up?

In this episode of Food Talk, we’ve invited Xiaoxiong to talk about her journey through agronomy. From daily life as an agronomy student to short-video entrepreneurship, to the different prospects for agronomy careers, to the dilemmas and significance of agronomy in our times – Xiaoxiong, who has only just closed the chapter on her student years, has plenty of thoughts to share.

If you are also curious about the life of an agronomy student, we welcome you to listen to this episode of Food Talk.

Xiaoxiong’s experimental plot.

Xiaoxiong aliquoting samples and running experiments in the lab.

Left: catching a fish by hand in the paddy. The field holds more than fish – shrimp too, and sometimes snakes. Right: looking back at the footprints left behind in the paddy.

Xiaoxiong in her first year, hoeing the land with classmates.

During the second year of her master’s, Xiaoxiong helped introduce Huazhong Agricultural University to Gaokao candidates in the years below her. A great many parents reached out in the comments or by direct message for admissions advice – Xiaoxiong jokingly calls herself the university’s unofficial admissions help desk.

Guest of This Episode

Xiaoxiong | An agronomy student who can work the fields, shoot a video, and write a thesis

Hosts of This Episode

Yuyang | Host of Food Talk. Recently out collecting pine cones and mushrooms in the Greater Khingan Range.

Li Ye | Host of Food Talk, a beginner-level resident of Stardew Valley – when will we see low-carbon agriculture written across the good earth of our Pelican Town…

Timeline

01:23 Two lives of a seven-year agronomy student: a Master of Agronomy from HZAU, and a short-video creator with 26,000 followers

03:44 When “a young woman in the fields” becomes the formula for clicks – but invites hate: “You scored that high just to learn how to transplant rice?”

05:20 Anxious direct messages from parent-fans: agronomy jobs are scarce – the child can’t sleep, the parents are more anxious still

08:10 Cyber farmer versus wild vlog creator

12:37 An MCN comes knocking: a 50-50 split, a 500,000-yuan penalty clause

20:50 What do agronomy students actually do in the fields each day? From planting rice, fertilising and irrigating to weeding and pest control – real agronomy research is far more than simply “going out to farm”.

27:53 Working until nine after dark, jotting notes under a streetlamp; oilseed rape stolen three times – reporting it to the police feels worse than just letting it go

33:25 So hard, so difficult – why does the life of an agronomy student still brim with such vitality?

39:06 Why do agronomy students form such deep bonds with their fellow lab-mates? Once you’ve finished a hard day’s work together, everyone looks a lot easier on the eye.

52:41 Employment truths: agronomy is harder on women – starting salaries of 8,000 yuan in bioinformatics versus only five or six thousand in traditional field work?

62:10 Perhaps one day agronomy students too can stand in the mainstream spotlight: “Xiaoxiong”, now graduated and employed, offers advice to those still reading agronomy and those about to start – seek your own way up, build your skills, and don’t write off your future too early.

Published by Foodthink