IT Times reporter ■ Ji Jiaying
There are no traffic stars, no marketing hype, and the variety show "Let's Farm" is quietly online.
"When I saw 'Let's Farm' a few months ago, it was just a PowerPoint and I thought it would just be a PowerPoint PPT. I didn't expect it to be right in front of my eyes right now. "Let's Farm" flying guest and stand-up comedian Pang Bo said. This incredible-sounding variety show came true.
"Who knows that the food on the plate is hard" is a poem that we have been familiar with since childhood. But when it comes to food, young people in the city know very little. "Let's Farm" revisits the topic of farming, allowing young people to step into the farmland with a serious attitude to understand the true meaning of "the people take food as the sky". The young people in the show must participate in the entire labor process, starting with a seed, planting, witnessing germination, growth, ear pumping, grouting and harvesting.
The program team interviewed more than 200 candidates, and screened out more than 30 young people who can endure hardships and stand hard work and are sincerely willing to work in agriculture for test shooting. Then let them live in the homes of local farmers, eat, live and work with the farmers, and carry out a completely real autumn harvest, and finally chose Chen Shaoxi, He Haonan, Jiang Dunhao, Li Gengyun, Li Hao, Lu Zhuo, Wang Yiheng, Zhao Xiaotong, Zhuo Yuan, Zhao Yibo 10 people to form a "farming team". The eldest of them, Jiang Dunhao, is 28 years old, and the youngest Wang Yiyan is only 19 years old.
In these 190 days of notice, there is no pay, and the "farming team" still needs to bear its own profits and losses. Different from the previous slow variety shows with life experience, this is a real "labor documentary show".
62.66 tons of rice were harvested in 6 days
Unlike other variety shows that return to the countryside, "Let's Farm" does not prepare beautiful homestays, exquisite furniture and appliances, and what awaits young people is two bungalows that are ordinary in the countryside. The room is concrete, the crunching bunk beds and simple hangers are assembled by the young people themselves, the small tables for eating are borrowed by the big brother who delivers the meal, and the benches are made by the young people themselves. So it was cobbled together, and the young people settled here.
There was no extra time to adapt, and the young people plunged headlong into the fields. The program group rented eight large farmlands, with a total area of 142.8 mu, equivalent to 13 football fields and 220 basketball courts. The first task for the young people is to rush to harvest rice so that wheat can be planted in early December. On the first day, they cut rice with sickles in hand, and at first they felt healed, but after nearly 12 hours of labor, it became difficult to raise their hands. But progress is far behind schedule.
The next day, with the addition of the harvester, the efficiency finally soared. But the harvester is not omnipotent, once it rains, the harvester can easily get stuck in the muddy field and have to rely on the crane to rescue. Unfortunately, one day, not long after the start of work, the three harvesters went on strike, and they had to continue to rush the harvest by manpower. From day to night, ten people were exhausted, collected 3 tons of rice, sent it to the grain station to dry, but were refused: "How can this be baked?" The starting capacity is thirteen tons. The joy of harvest in the young man's eyes instantly turned to loss.
After turning loss into motivation, after 37 harvester mud and 48 agricultural machinery repairs, the 10 young people of the "farming team" finally harvested 62.66 tons of rice in 6 days, which could feed more than 10,000 people for a month and earned 120,000 yuan.
Harvesting rice is only the first hurdle. Days of rain have flooded farmland, and wheat, a dry crop, must be drained urgently. The mud was mixed with water, wet and sticky, making it difficult to even walk. Within two days, the trendy clothes brought by the young people became decorations, replaced by one-piece waterproof pants, which they called "great inventions." In sub-zero and even snowy weather, young people remain immersed in water until the drainage ditches are unclogged.
Organic fertilizer is needed for sowing, and young people need to unload the goods themselves, a total of 30 tons, each bag of 25 kg, a full 1200 bags. From one person carrying a bag alone, to dividing it into two assembly lines to transport it, the efficiency has been greatly improved, but the 10 young people still unload it from day to night, covered in the smell of sheep dung.
With each level, push one step further, and the young people light up a new skill. Once they closed the level, they learned to make furniture, house decoration, build greenhouses, open canals, etc.
After sowing the wheat seeds, they had to wait for the seeds to settle and they had a day of rest. Finally, I had to trim my hair that had covered my eyes.
No unprepared place
Before the program was recorded, the program team arranged for young people to learn skills such as medical rescue, fire safety, cooking, carpentry, bricklayer, etc., and even obtained tractor driving licenses, rice harvesters, combine harvester licenses, corn harvester driving licenses and other driving licenses.
During the recording period, young people would humbly consult local masters when they encountered difficulties, and would also call experts from the local Academy of Agricultural Sciences to consult planting problems.
The daily work plan and total liabilities are written directly and clearly on the blackboard newspaper. In the daily review meeting, "effective communication" also becomes a must-have skill. Each review in recent issues has hit the nail on the point and summed up the shortcomings. Quickly start, quickly end, no other program meeting to turn the face of the routine plot, united in order to grow good land. The seriousness of young people makes them exude a different brilliance, and netizens ridicule: "Farming is the best medical beauty for men." ”
For follow-up development, the "Farming Team" also registered a company named "Ten Diligence Days", whose business scope includes agricultural scientific research and experimental development, grain cultivation, primary agricultural product purchase, etc. Everyone is a director of the company, and the eldest brother, Jiang Dunhao, is the chairman.
Go to the heart, but also to the "new"
The audience accompanied the young people to witness the whole process of turning grains of wheat into wheat fields, and also learned a lot of untouched knowledge from them.
The stagnant water in the field needs to be ditched to remove it, and the seeds need to be mixed before sowing ... The program popularized modern agricultural knowledge such as crops, solar terms, agricultural tools, and mechanized planting to the audience.
There are already many variety shows that have returned to the field, but the angle of "Let's Farm" still makes people feel novel, and the creation mode is also very novel. The show has no script, what time to get up every day, the daily farming plan, etc. are freely arranged by the young people, and the program team will only set deadlines at a few key nodes. Long variety show + short live broadcast go hand in hand, giving the audience a unique immersive experience.
During the one-hour live broadcast every day, the production team specially chose to start broadcasting at 9:30 a.m. to accompany everyone to start the day. The vlog synopsis updated daily by young people is also full of materials, and they can experience the "first scene" of farming from their perspective.
It is said that when "Let's Farm" was recorded, the investment situation was not ideal, but now with the increase in the attention of the program, the figure of advertisers is increasing, and the program cycle was originally scheduled for 39 episodes, and with the broadcast of the program, it has now been changed to 50 issues.
From not being optimistic, to gradually getting better, "Let's Farm" did it.