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Video PlayerClose by Xinhua writers Li Binian and Liu Jinhui ZHENGZHOU, March 20-- Despite his reluctance to leave his two-month-old son, Chinese farmer Duan Lin flew to Tajikistan Friday. It was the fourth time that Duan, one of 16 Chinese managers on a 1,670-hectare Tajik farm, had flown to the Central Asian country after the Chinese Lunar New Year. Before being sent to Tajikistan in 2017 as a technical adviser, Duan, 30, worked as an agricultural technology promotion employee at Huangfanqu Farm, where his grandfather and father had worked. The Huangfanqu Farm was established in 1951 based on a large parcel of land in Xihua and Fugou counties in China's central Henan Province. The land was flooded by the Yellow River, China's second longest, in the 1930s due to war and became unsuitable for farming because of high soil salinity. After three generations of efforts, the 6,670 hectares of land became arable again. In recent years, the farm started to seek expansion opportunities along the ancient Silk Road trade routes. "The state-owned farm could hardly support its workforce of 30,000 people. New growth drivers were urgently needed," said Zhai Jinzhong, director of the farm's overseas investment department. About 10 years ago, the farm's officials visited countries including Namibia, Uganda, Cambodia and Myanmar to seek potential investment opportunities, said Zhai. In 2013, the same year China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative, the farm established subsidiaries in Tajikistan and Ukraine. Now the farm grows wheat, corn and cotton in Tajikistan and raises cows in Ukraine. | 
