Tales of Harvest | A Xinjiang farmer's tech-driven harvest

Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporter Rayda) news: In September 2026, cotton bolls began to open in Shawan City, Tacheng Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and cotton pickers rolled into the fields one after another. Han Bo went into the fields too, but not to harvest. He was there to "diagnose" machinery.

"The hydraulic system on that baler to the left has a problem. We need to fix it fast. The grower is waiting," Han said on September 20, crouching beside a cotton picker at the edge of a field in Jingouhe Town. Wrench in hand, he spun it once, removed the guard panel in a few quick moves, peered inside, and called out to the operator nearby.

Scenes like this have played out every day since the harvest season began. As chairman of the Hongji Agricultural Machinery Service Cooperative in Shawan City and chairman of Xinjiang Hongji Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Han and his after-sales team have been constantly on the move across townships. Cotton pickers, tractors, balers — whichever machine breaks down, he shows up.

Han Bo checks a farm machinery fault in Shawan City, Tacheng Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo courtesy of the Media Convergence Center of Shawan City)

"The harvest season is like a race against time. Every hour a machine is down, the harvest falls behind," Han said, his tone urgent yet grounded.

Han is busy, and so is the factory. In the production workshop of Xinjiang Hongji Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd., nearly 30 seeders stood in neat rows, with row spacing, seeding rates, and compaction levels all adjusted to meet the requirements of a client in Kazakhstan. Workers were doing final inspections and wiping down the machines. The shipment will be dispatched in early October.

"Central Asia has different cotton planting methods than we do. You can't just ship machines designed for our system over there. They have to work well for the people using them," Han said.

In Shawan's farm machinery circles, Han Bo is a name that comes up often. In 2008, this farmer, who had finished only middle school and worked as a repairman and truck driver, took out a loan of over 2 million yuan (about 276,000 U.S. dollars) to buy Xinjiang's first imported large cotton picker. Many thought he was crazy.

What surprised people even more was that after using the machine, he found a major flaw: it had no fire suppression system. If a fire broke out during operation, the entire machine and a full load of cotton would be lost. He worked on the problem repeatedly and eventually developed a built-in fire suppression system for cotton pickers. The manufacturer later adopted it as a standard feature.

"I like to figure things out when I see something I haven't encountered before. At first I dared to think, and later I dared to try," Han said.

That cotton picker made Han a well-known figure locally. But going it alone was not enough for him. In 2010, he teamed up with several large machinery owners in his village to establish the Hongji Agricultural Machinery Service Cooperative.

"Our main goal at the time was to bring these machinery owners together, build our service brand, and standardize the cooperative's financial and management systems so it could grow," Han said.

After the cooperative was founded, the number of machines grew, and new problems emerged. On-board baling cotton pickers gradually became mainstream, leaving older basket-type pickers with an uncertain future. Han and his team performed "surgery" on them, removing the original cotton basket and installing a baling system. Loose cotton went in, and round bales came out. Local growers nicknamed it the "egg-laying machine."

Over the years, his team has upgraded hundreds of old basket-type cotton pickers. The modified machines outperform imported models in efficiency, at only a quarter of the cost of a new machine. "For agricultural machinery used in the fields, adaptability is everything. You have to work with real conditions and keep practicing," Han often says.

In recent years, he has designed practical machines including a movable lift-type cotton stacker and a portable doffer grinder for cotton pickers, and holds multiple invention and utility model patents.

With the machines improved and field work running smoothly, Han's horizons widened. Xinjiang borders Central Asia, where cotton planting methods and climate conditions are similar, and the agricultural machinery market there offers significant potential. "The machinery technology and planting methods we've developed in Xinjiang over the years are well suited for promotion there," Han said.

In 2024, at the invitation of the Kazakh side, the Hongji cooperative began sending technicians to Kazakhstan for agricultural technical guidance. In March 2025, the first two 13.68-meter, 36-row intelligent cotton seeders arrived in Kazakhstan and went straight to work.

"The commonly used 24-row seeders in Kazakhstan cover only 200 to 300 mu (about 13 to 20 hectares) a day. Our equipment can handle 750 mu (about 50 hectares) a day, more than three times the efficiency," Han said.

What started as an order for two machines has grown to over 800. On November 24 last year, Han flew to Sauran in Turkistan Region, Kazakhstan, to sign a formal cooperation agreement. The local industrial park provided two standard factory buildings for a subsidiary, offering a 10-year tax incentive, and the agricultural machinery produced there was included in the local government subsidy catalog.

"Our ultimate goal is to let Chinese agricultural machinery technology and farming methods truly take root, thrive, and benefit local people," Han said.

From a farmer who took out a loan to buy a cotton picker, to an inventor who pointed out flaws in imported machines, to an entrepreneur selling Chinese agricultural machinery to Central Asia, Han has spent more than two decades on this journey. The machines are still made of iron and steel, but what's inside them has changed. They now carry technology, patents, and the deep affection of a Xinjiang farmer for the land.

What does a bumper harvest taste like? To Han, it tastes like technology. It is the peace of mind that comes from fixing a machine so a grower can harvest on time. It is the quiet satisfaction of relentless tinkering that makes machines work better and better. And it is the sweetness of seeing local craftsmanship take shape in Chinese-made machinery bound for overseas markets.

The flavor is not overpowering, but the more you savor it, the more it lingers.

(A written permission shall be obtained for reprinting, excerpting, copying and mirroring of the contents published on this website. Unauthorized aforementioned act shall be deemed an infringement, of which the actor shall be held accountable under the law.)