Smaller Farm, Happier Life: A Couple’s 11-Year Journey Home
Taking the high-speed rail from the south exit of Xizhimen, we crossed the peaks of the Yanshan Mountains and arrived at the Huailai Basin. Though it had been less than an hour since leaving Beijing, the scenery had already completely transformed—into wide, flat plains and stretches of maize fields and vineyards, dotted with towering wind turbines.
The purpose of this trip was to join a group of consumers from the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market to visit the Happy Returning Youth Farm. I had met the farm’s owners, Huang Lifeng and Li Yuxia, at the market in Beijing; on warmer days, they travel into the city every week to sell their own tomatoes, potatoes, onions, pumpkins and various other vegetables, sometimes bringing their lovely young daughter along for the market day. This time, it was our turn to travel the road they take home after every market.
Switching to a car, a towering mountain suddenly loomed ahead, prompting the accompanying group of consumers to exclaim in unison: “What a wonderful place!” Looking back, we saw that Huang Lifeng was already waiting for us on the main road. Six years ago, this young couple, having returned to their roots, found their new home in a village at the foot of the mountain.
I. Two Returns to the Countryside: From the Plateau to the Basin
Using celery leaves to accent zinnia arrangements was the idea of the hostess, Li Yuxia. While she and several village women bustled about the kitchen preparing *youmian* (oat) steamed dumplings for lunch, Huang Lifeng stood in the courtyard to share the story of their return to the countryside.
Huang Lifeng and Li Yuxia were classmates, both trained in landscape horticulture. After graduating from Hebei North University in 2007, they put their studies into practice by joining a floral company. Part of Huang’s role involved spraying pesticides; despite wearing several layers of clothing, the daily exposure led to allergies and peeling skin.
These were only the visible symptoms; he began to fear the invisible impact of inhaled pesticides on his internal organs. Terrified by the prospect, Huang decided to distance himself from chemicals while remaining committed to working with the land and plants.
By chance, they discovered an ecological farm in Beijing called “Derunwu” and decided to work there. Huang quickly rose from intern to a key figure overseeing production, while Li managed consumer relations, marking their joint entry into the world of ecological agriculture.
A few years later, Yuxia became pregnant. The costs of prenatal care and childbirth in Beijing came as a shock to the young couple. At the time, Huang had already been commissioned by Derunwu to arrange for his family in Kangbao County, Hebei, to grow potatoes without pesticides or chemical fertilisers, sparking the idea of returning home to start their own venture.
The couple resigned and moved back to their hometown, planning their farm while awaiting the arrival of their child. Having seen too many “predecessors” struggle with the drudgery of farming—making little money and facing a lack of understanding from their families—they named their farm “Happy Returning Youth”.
Soon after, their first child, Taotao, was born, and the farm launched on ten *mu* of their own land in Kangbao County, Hebei. Initially, they aimed for a diversified farm with both vegetables and poultry; Huang even moved into a hut next to the chicken coop. However, they soon discovered that the knowledge and skills required for poultry and crop farming are entirely different. After a year of hard labour and few surviving chickens, they scrapped the poultry project to focus solely on cultivation.
Over the following years, the farm expanded to 300 *mu*, primarily growing potatoes, carrots, oats, and wheat, which became star products at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.
“Despite the size, the yield per unit of land is actually quite low,” Huang added. “Wheat yields a maximum of 150 *jin* per *mu*, and oats only around 100.”
The Bashang region of Hebei, where Kangbao County is located, lies on the southern edge of the Inner Mongolian Plateau. It is a typical agro-pastoral transition zone and a marginal area for agricultural production. With an average altitude of 1,486 metres, the region suffers from long, cold, and windy winters. The annual accumulated temperature is only 2,000 degrees Celsius; this short growing season and the inherent lack of water and heat act as a bottleneck for crop yields.
Despite the low yields, the cool climate provides an irreplaceable advantage for potatoes and oats. At the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, the “Happy Returning Youth” three-coloured potatoes and *youmian* (oat) fish have always been highly popular.
In recent years, the local government has seized the opportunity to promote the industrialisation of potato farming, with agricultural enterprises leasing thousands of contiguous *mu* of land in the villages. While potato fields have increased, the number of small-scale farmers has dwindled. “The land has all been leased by big companies. To grow a single potato, they use aerial spraying at least twenty times,” Huang remarked, incredulous. These aerial pesticides can drift dozens of metres or more, devastating neighbouring farmers—some of whom have seen their entire harvests fail due to drifting herbicides.
Their own plots, sandwiched between large corporate bases, became precarious. To escape the pollution caused by aerial spraying and drift, they steadily reduced their scale in the Bashang region, leaving them with only 30 *mu* this year. For the long term, the couple decided to seek out a new piece of land.
In 2017, they rented two small courtyards and nine *mu* of land in a village in Huailai County, located below the plateau. The water and heat conditions here are superior to those in Bashang, making it more suitable for vegetables. Furthermore, it is only a dozen kilometres from Li Yuxia’s childhood home, making it far more convenient to drop off and pick up their two children from school.
During harvest seasons, they spend every weekend at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market. “Moving here brought us closer to Beijing. We wake up at four or five in the morning and can be in the city by six or seven.”
Compared to the 320-kilometre journey from Kangbao, Huang feels that running an ecological farm here brings them closer to the Beijing consumer, aligning better with the principles of short-chain transport and organic consumption. Although the land is smaller, the yields from intensive cultivation are more than enough to sustain their family of four.
II. Saving Land and Water: Meticulous Cultivation on a 9-Mu Family Farm
Where did this composting knowledge come from? In addition to his experience at Derunwu Ecological Farm, Huang Lifeng credited the Fertile Soil Farming School, and has even studied Australian biodynamic methods for growing green manure. However, green manure is typically sown after the first crop of the season is harvested and then ploughed back into the soil before the next planting. For a small-scale vegetable farm like Happy Returning Youth, a fallow period lasting several months is simply not viable.
Huang Lifeng was well aware of this trade-off: “The cost of green manure is far too high. It’s cold here, so we only get one growing season a year. If we plant green manure, we can’t grow vegetables, meaning the whole year is wasted.” Consequently, he opted for fermented compost based primarily on sheep manure. This typically takes a month and a half to break down, or just a month if plastic sheeting is used to speed up the heating process. This allows composting and cultivation to happen simultaneously, without taking up valuable planting space.
“And where does the sheep manure for the compost come from?” a customer asked earnestly, referring to their guide.
Huang Lifeng pointed to the looming peaks of Jiming Mountain behind him: “People graze their sheep on the mountain, so I buy the manure directly from those farmers.” The group looked on with envy. While some organic farms are forced to spend a fortune transporting clean animal manure from distant grazing lands, being situated in a semi-agricultural, semi-pastoral region spares them such hassle.
Straw and grass clippings also make excellent materials for soil enrichment. Da Hei, a fellow farmer from Shaanxi who grows wheat using the ‘Vital Farming’ method, shared a tip with Huang Lifeng: use weeds as green manure by composting them in piles before transporting them into the fields. Having seen positive results from returning grass clippings to the soil, Huang invested 40,000 yuan this year in a forklift, a tricycle, and a chaff cutter, intending to further experiment with this ‘space-saving’ green manure.
His 9-mu vegetable plot is just a few dozen metres from the Yongding River irrigation canal. While many in the village draw water from there to save money, Huang and his wife steer clear of it—there used to be a pesticide plant upstream. One year, pesticide-contaminated water left a fellow villager’s rice crop completely ruined. To avoid contamination, Huang uses borehole water from a well over 100 metres deep.
The climate in the Zhangjiakou region is arid, with strong winds stripping moisture from the soil surface, and evaporation rates far exceed rainfall. Traditional flood irrigation requires too much water and impairs soil aeration, which is why they opted for drip irrigation. In the fields, Huang summarised the lessons he has learned: next year, he plans to grow onions in ridges, laying the drip tapes at intervals in the furrows. This will ensure the soil remains moist while allowing the roots on the ridges to breathe.
The choice of drip irrigation was based on sustainability, but it was also a matter of economics. Huang has done the maths: pumping water costs over 30 yuan per hour. With flood irrigation, thoroughly watering one mu costs between 80 and 90 yuan, whereas drip irrigation achieves the same result for just 22 yuan. The initial cost of installing the system has long since been recouped.
III. Working with Nature
Planting the flowers was the idea of the farm’s hostess, Li Yuxia. With a passion for flowers and a background in floriculture, she hoped to attract bees to pollinate the tomatoes. Recalling this, Huang Lifeng found it somewhat ironic: “I’m not sure if the bees ever showed up, but they certainly attracted plenty of Small White butterflies—and those are just cabbage worms in their adult form.”
Swarms of these butterflies prompted complaints from neighbouring vegetable growers, and many of Huang Lifeng’s own cabbages were devoured by cabbage worms; those that survived were simply rotted in the ground following the torrential rains of early August.
However, these losses were well within their expectations. The logic is simple: when farming in an open, natural environment, if one enjoys the benefits of the ecosystem services provided, one must also accept the potential loss in yield.
Take the tomatoes, for instance; the guiding principle at the Happy Return Youth Farm is “half for the birds, half for the people”. This summer, magpies were constantly pecking at the tomatoes. Huang Lifeng explained that it was a season when most other fruits and vegetables hadn’t yet ripened, making his tomatoes a prime target.
Initially, thinking the magpies might simply be thirsty, he placed a row of plastic containers filled with fresh water along the ridges. The tomatoes, however, continued to be pecked. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “You just peel off the pecked bit and they’re still perfectly edible.”
As the farm’s first “consumers”, the birds can be picky. Huang Lifeng planted a variety of heirloom maize which the birds adored, yet they completely ignored the hybrid varieties in the neighbouring field that had been treated with pesticides.
Some of these consumers suggested using bird netting, but Huang Lifeng was not convinced. The only intervention he wished to implement was a plastic rain shelter for the tomatoes—the heavy rains of August this year had caused more than half of them to crack.
He envisions the shelter as having “a film cover on top and open sides”, and it must be retractable. He believes that while bird netting and fixed rain shelters might reduce losses, they also shut out the beneficial elements of the ecosystem. “It is essential to establish a cycle within the biological chain,” Huang Lifeng repeatedly emphasised to us.
He has also developed his own insights into using the interrelationships between various species on the farm for cultivation. He plants cabbage in plots where garlic has just been harvested, as the pungent scent of garlic helps repel pests that favour leafy greens. Basil and cabbage are intercropped within the maize fields, while solanaceous crops—such as tomatoes, aubergines, and chillies—are planted with moderate density so that the leaves provide mutual shade.
“I’m telling you, the aubergines and chillies this year grew—well, they were fantastic! Not a hint of disease, and the yield was exceptionally high!” Huang Lifeng was clearly delighted with the success of his self-taught tricks.
Thanks to the strong winds blowing below the dam, there have been almost no aphids in the open-field crops. However, every advantage comes with a price. Recently, the wind knocked over all the tomato trellises. Huang Lifeng shared his woes with a smile: “I really can’t stand the wind here; it’s even stronger than up on the dam. At its peak, it can even snap power lines. Everyone is welcome to come and stay for a while to experience it for themselves,” which drew a round of laughter from us all.
IV. Finding Joy in the Toil
Huang Lifeng ran through the numbers again. They travel to Beijing every week for the market; whatever isn’t sold is sent to the farmers’ market’s offline stores, and a portion is absorbed by their own WeChat shop. The farm’s output is generally enough to cover the daily living expenses of a family of four.
Since shifting the production focus to the lower valley (Baxia), the land on the upper plateau (Bashang) has relied primarily on Huang Lifeng’s mother for care. Her passing last year was a significant blow to the family and presented a more pressing challenge: who would manage the land on the plateau?
After hosting this PGS visit, Huang Lifeng planned to return to Bashang the next day to harvest oats. But commuting between the two sites is not a long-term solution; firstly, smallholders struggle to survive in the gaps left by large companies seizing land, and secondly, splitting one’s attention inevitably leads to management lapses. For this reason, these two “happy returnee youths” have mentally prepared themselves to give up the land in Bashang.
Huang Lifeng reminded us with some emotion: “Whether you’re running a farm or doing anything else, you must do it yourself and bear your own hardships.” Relying on parents or hired labour is never as reassuring as tending the land personally; this is the realisation of a small-scale farmer.
As midday approached, a sumptuous lunch was brought out from the kitchen, featuring the long-awaited youmian steamed dumplings, made from the oats they grew on the plateau. Yuxia, who had spent the entire morning busy hosting us, could finally take a break and chat for a few moments. At that moment, their eldest son, Taotao, returned from school for lunch, clinging to his mother and asking to see her phone. Born the year his parents returned to the countryside, he is now in year five.
While only they truly know the “hardship” of agriculture, the couple appeared as bright and optimistic as ever. To be able to earn a decent income through agroecology, eat organic vegetables grown at home, and care for family alongside their labour—all while firmly rooting themselves in their hometown—such a life is enough to make anyone envious.
Perhaps they have already found the happiness they were first searching for.
Foodthink Editor, born and raised in a small town in the Northwest. Special skills of a Shaanxi native include, but are not limited to: eating from traditional “old bowls”, pairing a bowl of noodles with two cloves of garlic, and a particular fondness for sour flavours.
Editors: Wang Hao, Tianle