As Western audiences are eagerly awaiting the new season of Clarkson's Farm, a growing number of Chinese audiences are paying close attention to the day-to-day goings-on at a farm in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, where Become a Farmer Season 2, a hit farming-focused reality show available for streaming on iQIYI, is being made.

Unlike the British documentary starring Jeremy Clarkson, a bigwig presenter and journalist, Become a Farmer casts 10 obscure Gen-Z male artists who are musicians or actors handpicked from over 200 applicants in 2022.

A media tour in mid-April organized by the show's creators, iQIYI and Blue Sky Media, took dozens of journalists to 58 Houdoumen in Sanlian village, Sandun township of Xihu district, where the 10 young men farm.

About half an hour's drive from downtown Hangzhou, the village appeared. Bathed in balmy, exquisite spring weather, the golden rapeseed flowers are in full bloom. The wheat fields are an expanse of hopeful greenness. Foxgloves open in the garden, kale and strawberries are exuberant in the greenhouse, honeybees buzz around, and rabbits chill in their little cages. Everything is coming alive — intoxicating.

Striking the audience as unlikely farmers as Clarkson was when the show started in February 2023, the 10 farming greenhorns, born between 1995 and 2004, embarked on a 190-day journey of tackling fickle weather, dilapidated houses, and wayward animals to turn a profit from nearly 10 hectares of fields.

First of its kind in the country, the show was initially doubted as an attention-seeking stunt, but it soon proved to audiences that they were mistaken.

Through 50 slow-paced, documentary-like features and a plethora of live streams and vlogs, it followed the group bent on ploughing, digging ditches, sowing seeds, fertilizing, making greenhouses, revamping their dorms, and much more. It offered a panorama of Chinese farmers' lives and an up-close look at the ins and outs of modern farm work.

A fruitful attempt

A black horse in China's cut-throat variety show market, the show's Season 1 hoovered up a series of honors, including a nomination for Best Variety Show at the 28th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Awards. On Douban, China's answer to IMDb, its rating rose to a staggering 9.0 out of 10.

Many audience members, especially young urbanites who are too far away from their ancestral villages and their associated lifestyles, call it a sincere production that reveals the hardships of farming and offers a glimpse into the status quo of China's agricultural industry.

Many more viewers, especially those navigating uncertainties in life and battling anxiety and pressure at school and work, find the show or farming itself therapeutic.

"The land doesn't lie to you. That's what I feel strongly about farming," said He Haonan, one of the 10 youths.

The 24-year-old, who specializes in singing and dancing, said he used to be confused about the future because many efforts could end in vain. He also noted that many people work with the intangible, like data and words, which do not yield tangible results, and they can feel easily frustrated.

"Here on the farm, if we carefully tend to the seeds that we have planted, they will sprout, flower, and then bear fruit after a while. The feedback from the land, which is palpable, can bring you a sense of fulfillment. I guess that is why many people find that there is a healing power to our show," he told reporters during a group interview.

Aside from reaffirming the truth of the adage "As you sow, so shall you reap," the show has created a utopia in which the 10 young men work close to nature, support each other, and naturally develop genuine camaraderie. In the middle of Season 1, they established a boy's group, Shigeqintian (literally 10 hard-working days) and an agricultural company with the same name.

The utopia on the small screen echoes a longing for nature and friendship among its audiences, who commonly lack socializing in their busy urban lives. They call the participants "my dear digital friends" in real-time comments that appear on the screen.

Not only is Become a Farmer commended for its immense emotional value but it is also hailed for raising public awareness about the country's agriculture and farmers' livelihoods.

Ensuring food security has remained one of the country's top priorities because China, which produces about a quarter of the world's food and feeds more than one-fifth of our planet's population, has less than nine per cent of Earth's cultivatable land.

"I hope this show will let more people understand the value of farming and the hardships of farmers and hence grow willing to pay good prices for quality agricultural products," Zhu Yi, an associate professor at China Agricultural University, wrote in a Weibo post on Feb 23. "I hope farming can become a proud profession in the future, and youths with a love for the land can lead a decent life and realize their value without leaving their hometowns."

From artists to agri-preneurs

In Become a Farmer Season 2, the 10 youths aspire to make their farming venture bigger and stronger.

According to the show's chief director Yang Changling, their ambition is primarily thanks to the skills and technologies they acquired on study tours to advanced agricultural bases in the provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Henan, and Shanxi, as well as the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, after the completion of Season 1.

The size of their farm tripled to 30 hectares. In addition to wheat and roses, which they grew last year, the young men added cash crops, including kale, rapeseed, tulips, chilli peppers, and strawberries. They expanded the fishpond and cultivated a crayfish farm.

Even though the harvest season has yet to come in mid-April, the Houdoumen youths were busy with their plans.

For example, Wang Yiheng, 20, the youngest of the 10, said he had spent several days in the kitchen experimenting with the flavors of crayfish dishes as he planned to turn the to-be-harvested crayfish into pre-cooked products. Lu Zhuo was studying rose pastry recipes and wanted to develop one that was different from those on the market. Chen Shaoxi was researching how to sell the fish properly. Zhuo Yuan was ready to harvest and process strawberries into various strawberry products. Zhao Xiaotong was considering turning the already ripe kale into freeze-dried kelp powder.

"Season 1 was mostly about how they familiarized themselves with the fields, which they may have learned bits and pieces from their parents, grandparents, books, films or TV series, just as most of today's young people," Yang, told reporters during the group interview.

"Season 2 is more about how they transform their ambition into solid actions, which is also the innovation of the new season," he added.

"Even though each of us has encountered various difficulties when we run our farm business, we aim to handle them as real entrepreneurs do," said Jiang Dunhao, 29, the oldest of the 10 participants.

Jiang had just harvested gallons of raw honey from the Italian bees he keeps and was ready to have it evaluated by a food testing laboratory before it was sold.

"We would design the packaging and ensure food safety so that we can sell our products to the general public instead of dumping them to our fans by taking advantage of the show's popularity," Jiang said.

However, because of the show's ballooning popularity and the farm's still limited production, whatever they have produced so far—roses, tulips, lettuce, and rice—all sold out like hotcakes, barely enough to satisfy the demand of devoted fans.

For example, on Thursday noon, a few minutes after the farm published its recent commodity—a pack of 500-gram rice featuring an illustration by Zhao Xiaotong—on its store on the micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo, more than 26,000 packages were snapped up.

Without simply reaping and resting on increasing laurels and sponsorship advertising, producers and participants have already channeled the show's popularity into sharing prosperity with more of the country's farmers.

"In the new season, we have the same hard-working spirit, but we have gained a sense of responsibility and mission as new farmers," said Zhao Yibo, one of the 10 farming youths. "Last year, we only sold things from our farm, but this year, we also want to leverage our current influence to help promote the development of villages and farmers," he added.

Li Gengyun, one of the show's participants, is growing Erjingtiao, a variety of chilli peppers popular in Sichuan cuisine. Working on hot sauce recipes, Li said he wanted to help increase the income of chilli pepper farmers in his hometown, Southwest China's Chongqing. Wang Yiheng shared that he wanted to help sell the crayfish of his friend together with whom he learned crayfish breeding in Xuyi, Jiangsu province.

The 10 young men went to Northwest China's Gansu province before this year's National Tree Planting Day on March 12. There, they held live-streaming sales to help sell local agricultural produce and bought 180,000 saxaul trees. They spent a week planting them on the sandy land of Tengger Desert with local villagers and agricultural university students. Their efforts won widespread praise on social media and inspired many to join them in contributing to the country's afforestation endeavor.

"The goal that we want to achieve most and will work hard toward is to make more people pay attention to agriculture and help farmers live a better life," said Wu Han, producer of the show.