The special trains that have transported 1.65 million migrant workers

Migrant workers wait for the train at Suihua railway station on Monday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A special train carrying migrant workers left Suihua railway station in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province for Fuyuan city at 2:46 pm on Wednesday.

The train passed several large farms in the Sanjiang Plain, a major rice growing area in the province, such as Jiansanjiang, Qianjin, and Honghe.

As there are not enough farmhands locally to carry out rice seedling transplanting, groups of migrant workers move to the Sanjiang Plain every year.

Most of them come from rural areas in Harbin, Qiqihar and Suihua, in Heilongjiang.

Given the climate in Heilongjiang, the best time for rice seedling transplantation is from May 5-25, which can help ensure a good harvest.

Although in recent years, agricultural mechanization has greatly increased, rice seedling transplanting still relies heavily on manual labor.

Two special rail lines – one from Qiqihar, a city in Heilongjiang; the other from Suihua to Fuyuan – opened May 2 and are estimated to have transported 48,000 migrant workers as of May 20, along with two fixed lines from Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang, according to the China Railway Harbin Group.

Since 2000, when the administration introduced the service, the special trains have transported 1.65 million migrant workers to and from the rice production areas in Heilongjiang.

Shi Xia, 58, a farmer from Honger village, Wangkui county, was one of the workers taking the Wednesday train to Qianshao Farm.

"I have come to the farm every spring since 2011. There are ten people from our village on this train this year, and we will do the same work of transplanting rice seedlings for the following 20 days,” she said.

"Everyone can get 350 ($51.6) yuan per day, and we can make about 7,000 yuan by the time we go home. That's much more than I can earn at home."