The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently announced on its official website 99 honorees for the FAO 100 Women Heroes under the "Agrifood Systems and Rural Development" initiative. Two Chinese women made the list. Dong Minfang, president of Fengrui Agricultural Machinery Professional Cooperative in Yueyang County, Hunan Province, is among them, along with Yu Jinxiu, a moxibustion therapist from Qichun County, Hubei Province.
  
Launched by the FAO, this global initiative recognizes outstanding women for their contributions to agriculture, food systems and rural development. According to FAO's official website, it received 609 nominations from 131 member countries. The final list was determined based on an eligibility review, an assessment and ranking by senior management, and two rounds of deliberations. An award ceremony will be held on October 15 at FAO headquarters in Rome as part of this year's World Food Forum, where the remaining honoree will be revealed.

Dong Minfang is chairperson of the Runsheng Rice Professional Cooperative and the Fengrui Agricultural Machinery Professional Cooperative in Yueyang County. In 2013, with a determination to break the traditional agricultural dilemma of "depending on the weather for farming," she gave up an enterprise senior manager position and returned to her hometown to grow grain. She promoted dryland seedling cultivation to save seedling field land, helping increase regional grain production by more than 10 million jin (about 5,000 tonnes) annually. To address problems of fragmented operations and low efficiency, she explored a new path of "full mechanization + comprehensive socialized services for agriculture." She established two professional cooperatives, and set up a high-standard socialized service center for the grain industry to provide full-chain services, achieving "farmers no longer have to work in the fields in person, and grain is machine-harvested without touching the ground." With her services covering over 100,000 mu (6,670 hectares) annually, she has led smallholder farmers into the mainstream of modern agricultural development.
  
Dong adheres to joint development and common prosperity. Through transfer of land-use rights, nearby employment, technical assistance, and price-guaranteed procurement under contracts, she has helped more than 10,000 local households steadily increase their income, and employed over 100 rural laborers locally. She regularly provides free training in agricultural machinery operation and scientific farming, cultivating a group of new-type professional farmers. Under her influence, more young people are heading to the fields, becoming a new force in safeguarding food security and promoting rural revitalization.
  
Dong Minfang arrived in Italy on October 13, and will attend the award ceremony in Rome on October 15. She said that this honor belongs not only to her personally but also to the countless new farmers striving in the fields across China. She will continue to root herself in the fertile land, contributing her strength as a woman to consolidating food security, comprehensively advancing rural revitalization, and accelerating agricultural modernization.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn. 

Translator: Pang Yuehui 

Chinese source: Hunan Daily