Chinese farmers’ harvest festival this year falls on September 23, also the autumnal equinox. Farmers across China were singing and dancing in various activities featuring exotic local specialties, rurality, and agricultural products to celebrate the festival and bless the motherland.

In 2018, China set the autumnal equinox in the lunar calendar as the Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival. This is the first festival set by a country for farmers.

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, over 300 harvest celebrations based in villages were planned for the second Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival.

The opening ceremony of Harvest Festival

Bumper harvest celebrations

The countryside becomes the center of the harvest festival in all provinces this year. Each district and county emphasized the fields, farmyards, and plant workshops in the villages with due consideration of the local folk culture, farming season and work, as well as the geographical environment, to display the harvest scenery across Chongqing.

In Longping Wucai Countryside Scenic Area, Changhong Village, Shiwan Town, Dazu District, farmers, and tourists enjoyed a good time together in reaping rice, catching fish, herding ducks, playing tug-of-war in fields and handling crops.

At the activity site of Bishan District Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Center, various vivid handicrafts including three-dimensional national flags and pictures of pandas made of eggplant, carrot, pepper, corn and other fruits and vegetables attracted many visitors.

The celebration in Dadukou District was held in Shipan Village, Tiaodeng Town. A promotion activity was held to exhibit the featured agri-products and processed products in the district.

Joyful competition in farm work

Farm work competition is, of course, an indispensable part of the celebration.

Harvest Festival in Qijiang County

In Changping Village, Hetu Town, Nanchuan District, skilled grain growers vigorously competed in harvesting and threshing in the field.

Bishan District integrated the daily farm work skills, including shouldering pumpkin, cornhusking, seedling-slinging in dry land and picking up soybeans with chopsticks, into an exciting harvesting race.

Among the harvesting skill contests of Shapingba District, the trophy of the tug-of-war in the field was a chunk of local pork, arousing the interest and enthusiasm of the local farmers as well as the tourists.