Productive farm tasks: picking tea (China)

The popular saying in China the men plough and the women knit has been changed to the women plough and the men work in industry.

China is main world producer of rice, wheat and potatoes, and the second world producer of corn. Its recent, rapid socio-economic transformation has seen migration to the cities by men-folk mushroom, and so farming has become feminised. The growing of corn is now in the hands of women, who till the land and use a double system to get seeds, combining those provided by the public sector with traditional varieties suited to their preferences and to the agricultural conditions of the land.

Rural women in China have always carried out farming tasks, especially market gardening and mulberry and tea-picking, while the men carried out specific growing tasks such as tilling the fields; harvesting was a joint task.