Lianxiang Farm: Eight Years of Levelling Up in Eco-Farming
Departing from Beijing Chaoyang Station, a high-speed rail journey of just over an hour brought us to Pingquan North Station in Chengde, Hebei, where Ren Yingying, the proprietress of Lianxiang Farm, was already waiting for us. Petite with her hair swept back, Yingying looked sharp and energetic, with a relaxed smile on her face. This was a PGS visit organised by the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market in early September. Lianxiang’s vegetables, corn, and peanuts are highly popular at the market—especially their tomatoes, which are so sweet and juicy they can be eaten like fruit. Our group of over twenty, including market regulars, ecological farming enthusiasts, and agricultural students, had come specifically to discover the cultivation techniques used at Lianxiang Farm.
The farm is nearly an hour’s drive from the station. After passing through the town’s brand-new housing developments, timber processing plants nestled at the foot of the mountains, and vast stretches of cornfields turning from green to gold, we arrived at Lianxiang. Leaving behind Beijing’s haze and summer heat, we found a place of blue skies, white clouds, and a cool breeze at the foot of the green hills. To the clucking welcome of free-range chickens, the owner, Wen Zhiqiang—a well-built man with a buzz cut and sun-darkened skin—gave us an update on the farm, while Yingying disappeared into the kitchen, with two more dishes left to stir-fry.
As it turns out, starting the farm was originally Yingying’s idea. The couple, both born in the 1990s, met at an agricultural college. At the time, their families did not approve of them going into farming. But Yingying believed that “no matter what happens, people always need to eat. By farming and growing our own food, we will always have a meal on the table, regardless of how the wider environment changes.” This was not an easy decision for the young couple. The elders and neighbours in the village still hoped the younger generation would leave the countryside to find stable, high-paying jobs in the city. In their eyes, following the path of Zhiqiang’s cousins—becoming programmers or teachers at the city’s best high schools—were far better options. However, once Yingying set her heart on the farm, Zhiqiang decided to support her fully, determined to “practice farming differently from the previous generation”.
1. Pests: The First Hurdle of Ecological Farming
What troubles Zhiqiang and Yingying, and indeed every ecological farmer the most, is pests.
When the farm first started, capital was limited, so they had to invest gradually, beginning with shiitake mushrooms. Soon, Lianxiang’s shiitakes became a star product at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market. During this visit, some market regulars still asked about those mushrooms, remembering them fondly. However, after two or three years of cultivation, they were plagued by beetles. Once harvested, the mushrooms were densely covered in tiny beetles. These pests were incredibly resilient, surviving even after being dried or frozen. They tried numerous pest control methods, all of which failed, eventually forcing them to give up on shiitakes.
Some also asked why Lianxiang’s other signature product—tomatoes—had recently disappeared. After lunch, Zhiqiang and Yingying took us for a walk in the fields. It turns out that, in addition to the cotton bollworms they must watch for every year, the tomatoes encountered an invasive species this spring: the South American tomato leafminer. These pests lay eggs on the leaves, and once the larvae hatch, they bore into the leaves and fruit. As the larvae feed, black holes form on the skin of the fruit, which not only affects their appearance but also invites bacteria, causing the fruit to rot. Looking inside the poly-tunnel, we saw that the ripe tomatoes looked flawless on one side, but the other was riddled with black spots from insect feeding.
Zhiqiang picked a few of the insect-damaged tomatoes for us. Breaking one open, it was juicy and had a sweet, tangy taste that was incredibly refreshing. The black spots were only on the surface, and the flavour of the fruit remained unaffected. However, such fruit cannot be sold commercially. The farm’s assistant picked a whole basket of tomatoes, but could barely salvage half a basket of intact fruit. The remaining damaged ones were briskly carried by Zhiqiang to the chicken coop to feed over a thousand chickens.
II. Fearing Both Weeds and Herbicides
Fortunately, the arduous task of weeding is primarily during the seedling stage. Once the crops outgrow the weeds, there is less to worry about. “To use an analogy, in an orchard, the trees are the ‘big brothers’; weeds cannot compete with them, so they can be left alone. Vegetable patches are different,” Zhiqiang explains. “Weeds grow faster than vegetables. When carrots are first planted, the seedlings are frail, meaning you have to keep a close eye on the weather. After rain, the weeds grow wildly, and you have to be out in the field at dawn the next day to pull them. You have to do this three or four times before the carrots are established enough for you to finally catch your breath.”
Furthermore, one must be vigilant about herbicide drift from neighbouring fields. With the rise of aerial spraying, it has become increasingly common in recent years for ecological farms to be contaminated through no fault of their own. In our PGS visit forms, the question “If the farm is adjacent to conventional production, are there isolation measures in place, and how is herbicide drift prevented?” is a mandatory field.
While neighbouring farmers spray herbicides on their cornfields, firstly, to avoid waste, they typically spray on windless days; secondly, Lianxiang Farm has clear boundaries, separated from conventional cornfields by roads and drainage ditches, making it relatively safe. Even so, Zhiqiang notes that after a heavy rain this year, runoff from the fields flowed into the ditches and over the roads, meaning the risk of herbicide drift remains a constant concern.
III. Extreme Heat: Sunburnt Tomatoes and Hens that Stop Laying
According to a report by *Southern Weekly*, in mid-June—just the day before the picking event—temperatures in Chengde soared past 40°C. In just a few hours, Lianxiang’s tomatoes were sunburnt and became unsellable. Those that managed to survive the heat suffered from water shortages, leaving the roots unable to absorb calcium from the soil. This led to blossom-end rot, leaving the skins mottled with black spots or mould-like patches.
As Lianxiang’s star product, tomatoes typically account for a third of the profits. However, Zhiqiang noted that while pests had been an issue in the past, high yields still allowed for significant sales. This year, the pests have become more rampant, while yields have plummeted due to the heat and drought.
Even the hens stopped laying eggs in the oppressive heat. Usually, the farm’s thousand-plus chickens produce over 300 eggs a day, but during those heatwaves, Yingying could only collect about 50.
IV. Recruitment Dilemmas
Recruitment has been even more difficult this year, and the reason is surprisingly the rising price of wild sour jujubes—a traditional Chinese medicinal herb said to have sedative and calming properties and the ability to improve sleep.In previous years, the market purchase price for wild sour jujubes from the mountains was generally between 2 and 3 yuan per jin, but this year the price has surged to 15 yuan per jin. A person picking wild sour jujubes can earn up to 2,000 to 3,000 yuan a day, leading to a rush among local villagers. Because purchase prices fluctuate daily, many have simply resorted to cutting down the trees to shake loose the fruit to ensure their own profits are maximised, resulting in a tragedy of the commons.
V. Eight Years After Returning Home
Their daughter, Ke’er, born on the farm in 2018, has reached school age. To provide her with a more stable school environment, the couple redistributed their responsibilities: Zhiqiang remains at the farm while Yingying has rented a house in Pingquan County to take Ke’er to and from school. Every morning, after dropping Ke’er off, Yingying takes a 40-minute bus ride from the county town back to the farm, returning to the town in the afternoon to collect her daughter and stay overnight. In this way, Yingying has become something of a 9-to-5 commuter. Because of school, Ke’er can only return to the farm on weekends, and since Yingying needs more time to care for her, the daily labour and management of the farm fall primarily on Zhiqiang’s shoulders.
Currently, Lianxiang Farm covers a total area of over 50 mu. With 26 mu under cultivation, the low winter temperatures of the north mean that open-field planting is only possible between May and October. Yingying has developed a diverse production plan for different seasons, supplying between 20 and 30 varieties of vegetables throughout the year. Taking maize as an example: they offer sweet corn, waxy corn, and field corn, with cornmeal and corn grits available in November and December. As for peanuts, they provide fresh peanuts, dried peanuts, peanut kernels, and peanut oil. To ensure Ke’er has fresh fruit and vegetables all year round, the couple rented three earth-wall greenhouses (solar greenhouses with earthen walls) near the farm this year. The walls, built from loess, provide excellent insulation, allowing them to grow fruit-bearing vegetables like tomatoes even in winter.
Beyond the vegetables, Zhiqiang is also in charge of livestock: free-range, Silkie, and Luhua chickens strolling leisurely through the maize fields, stately geese, and plump year-end pigs in the pens. The various fruits and vegetables pecked by birds or eaten by insects serve as their feed; with such a rich and balanced diet, they perhaps eat better than we city dwellers do. The farm also has two large dogs to keep an eye on the chickens and pigs, and nine cats of various temperaments wandering about.
Starting from supplying produce to schools and other organic farms, and then partnering with the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, Yingying and Zhiqiang decided to take things a step further. From 2019, Lianxiang began experimenting with a relationship based on deep trust with some of their customers through a bespoke service: “Tell us what vegetables you like, and we will grow them for you!” This breaks the traditional Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model of “eat what we have”.
In the eight years since Zhiqiang and Yingying returned home, they have faced some difficulties every year, but they have persevered and continued to experiment. Zhiqiang says: “Despite the various disasters in the fields and the problems that arise at every stage of farming, we still try to grow anything we can. Because the variety of crops is so diverse, there is always something to harvest by the end of the year.”
Family togetherness, self-sufficiency, rooting oneself in the land, working steadily, and facing an unpredictable world with optimism—could there be a more peaceful way to live?
Unless otherwise noted, the illustrations in this article
are from the Foodthink Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market
Editor: Ling Yu