⧉Image Agricultural Tools: Application Of Various Technologies For Plowing, Harrowing, Sowing And Harvesting

In a very obvious way the superiority of tractors in agricultural production is acknowledged. While a single peasant can dig up 0.2 mu (1 mu equals 0,165 acre) in ten hours by use of a manual hoe, the Soviet DT-54 tractor (54 hp engine, built from 1949 to 1979) with its five plowshares can plow 100 mu in the same time, representing an increase by the factor 500. The increases in harrowing, sowing and harvesting are similar and became during the Mao era (especially in the Great Leap Forward phase) an inherent part of the science dissemination propaganda.

Source: Xu Guohua 许国华 and Liu Jiansheng 刘健生, Tuolaji he lianhe shougeji (拖拉机和联合收割机) (Beijing: Zhonghua quanguo kexue jishu puji xiehui, 1954), 32-33.