Xu Yulan, a farmer from Central China's Henan Province, holds cotton she collected on Wednesday at Xinhu Farm in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of Northwest China. [China Daily]

Xu Yulan arrives at a cotton field on the Xinhu Farm after walking some three kilometers from her lodge.

When the dew on the plants evaporates, she will pick cotton for the first time this year.

She arrived at the farm, located about 130 kms northwest of Xinjiang's capital Urumqi, at the end of August, only to spend most of her first few days there plucking tomatoes.

"I prefer plucking cotton," Xu, 42, a slim villager and experienced cotton picker from Central China's Henan Province, said on Wednesday.

"It's free of dirt and much cleaner," she added.

The farm's 13,000-hectare cotton field, where Xu and an estimated 15,000 cotton pickers from outside Xinjiang work, accounts for only a fraction of Xinjiang's total output.

For Xinjiang, a Uygur autonomous region in Northwest China that produces one-third of China's cotton, the number of non-local cotton pickers will swell to more than 300,000 this year, according to official estimates.

The number has fallen from previous years, as Xinjiang reduces its cotton fields and uses more machinery to cut down on rising labor costs.

Now in her 10th year at the Xinhu Farm, Xu will earn 1.2 yuan (18 cents) for every kilogram of cotton she picks, about 50 percent higher than last year.

As a picker with extraordinarily adroit hands, Xu said she can pluck up to 180 kgs of cotton a day, enabling her to earn up to 200 yuan a day during the month-long harvest.

That makes her 44-hour train journey and three-hour bus trip to the farm worthwhile. Lacking other skills, she would otherwise be sitting around if she stayed in her home village after the summer harvest.

Widely thought of as arduous work, cotton picking requires workers to remain bent over in the autumn sun.

Like her fellow workers, Xu wears a cap with a long visor and carries large sacks with a strap around her waist, as she makes her way along the 100-meter rows of cotton.

Unlike some pickers, however, she does not wear gloves to protect her fingers from being cut by the plant. Years of experience have allowed her to move her hands freely among the plants without being hurt.

When half the sack is filled with cotton, Xu sits on it to continue picking.

"I then don't need to stand and bend down all the time," she said.

By sunset, Xu has done her day's work and returns on foot to her lodge with the other cotton pickers.

Their agent, who is also from Henan province, brought heaps of flour and cabbage to their temporary home and hired a cook from their hometown to make meals for the 200 or so cotton pickers who live there.

"We have steamed buns and cabbage soup for dinner," said Xu, apparently satisfied with life on the farm.

"It is a pity we don't have a TV here," she added.

(China Daily September 17, 2010)