A young man drives a harvester through a rice field. Slow down, a farmer chides him. But he zooms on—then gets stuck in the mud. Welcome to “Become a Farmer”, the hit reality-TV programme on ...

But if I can plant rice once and reap harvests for several years, the cost will be greatly reduced,” Liang said. “Why won’t I try it?” Liang is one of more than 40,000 small farmers in ...