Four Gifts from My Farm Internship
I. Returning to the Countryside: A Connection with Pengcheng Natural Farm
In my youth, the countryside conjured images of poverty, deprivation, and being left behind. Yet as I matured, I began to perceive its hidden ‘abundance’, which prompted me to try returning to rural life. Ultimately, through Foodthink’s ecological agriculture internship programme, I made it to Pengcheng Natural Farm in mid-to-late April this year.
Farming here follows natural agricultural principles. We leave the ground cover as much as possible, minimise soil tillage, and strictly avoid chemical fertilisers and herbicides. When needed, we turn to organic amendments such as worm castings and liquid fertiliser made from peanut bran.
The farm is run by Pengcheng and his wife, Huahua. They are parents to a young daughter, Wuwo, and share the space with two cats. Their roles naturally complement one another: Pengcheng oversees crop cultivation and leads farm tours and educational sessions, while Huahua coordinates events and manages sales. They pitch in together on the heavier farm work and share all household duties equally.
One of the key reasons I chose to intern at Pengcheng Natural Farm was the seamless integration of work and daily life. The family doesn’t just work here; they truly live here. Beyond the rhythms of cultivation and domestic routine, they often set aside an afternoon midweek for reading and discussion with local community partners. On weekends and public holidays, the farm opens its gates to the public for immersive rural experiences.
This commitment to healthy, natural principles extends far beyond the fields and into their everyday lives. They prioritise sustainably sourced ingredients, wash up with tea seed powder, and diligently sort their waste. Their routine includes regular meditation, tea drinking, stretching, and time spent reading or listening to audiobooks. They also draw on traditional Chinese medicine practices for wellness, preferring to boil water and cook rice over a wood fire. This not only helps to nourish the body’s yang energy, as tradition holds, but also provides a purposeful use for the branches pruned from the farm’s fruit trees.
In this setting, I glimpsed the kind of life I aspire to lead: one lived in companionship with nature, marked by care for the environment, for oneself and for others, and grounded in practical actions that benefit the individual, the community, and the natural world alike.
I had originally planned to stay for six months, but due to my frail health, I began to experience a range of physical discomforts after just over a month. This meant I had to cut my internship short. Yet, even in that brief span, the experience gifted me with far more than I could have anticipated.
II. Gift One: Letting Go and Balance
The most common involves pruning fruit trees. Examples include: trimming away some of the crossing branches on litchi and guava, snapping off excess side shoots from pineapple main stems, and cutting down 蕉树 that have become too overgrown or dense. In short, we discard the ‘excess’ to create a more even distribution of growth space and energy among branches, fruits, and neighbouring plants. It is a way of reallocating space and energy, cutting down on unnecessary nutrient drain, and directing supplies towards the most productive branches and fruits.
Take litchi trees, for instance. The inner branches that see little sunlight typically grow quite weak and are unlikely to flower or set fruit. Since this is the case, they are pruned away to conserve the tree’s energy. Another example occurred when I was helping with guava harvesting during my internship. I was initially taken aback, even feeling a pang of regret, when Teacher Pengcheng asked me to remove some or all of the fruit from less vigorous trees. But once I understood the reasoning, it made perfect sense. Even if a weaker tree manages to set some fruit, it will mostly struggle to keep it on, and the developing fruit will drain nutrients that are already in short supply, hindering the tree’s overall growth. From a long-term viewpoint, the sensible choice is to sacrifice the current crop, funnel energy into making the tree strong and resilient, so that it can yield a greater abundance of high-quality fruit in the future.
The second category involves giving up some cropping space to let grass grow, or dedicating it to sowing 绿肥 and constructing ecological ponds. The goal is to encourage biodiversity and maintain the crop-growing environment in a more balanced ecological state. Such practices are seldom seen in traditional agriculture. To conventional farmers, grass is the enemy; it competes with crops for nutrients and must be eradicated.
The third aspect is subtler and somewhat more complex to navigate: it involves minimising unnecessary human intervention. This means tilling less, applying fewer fertilisers, refraining from pesticides, and either skipping or drastically reducing weeding. Natural farming operates on a trust in “natural forces,” holding that excessive human meddling disrupts ecological equilibrium. To pull back from intervention is not to do nothing; rather, it is an exercise in releasing certain desires and rigid attachments. It calls for letting go of the anxiety that drives us to worry about yields falling short, growth progressing too slowly, or the crops simply failing to thrive.
Conventional agriculture, for instance, often reacts to the sight of pests or disease with alarm, rushing to intervene with a cocktail of insecticides. Fearing that plants may be nutrient-deficient and stunted, it heavily relies on synthetic fertilisers. Such approaches can tip the ecological balance, leaving the soil, the crops and the microbial life in a compromised state. Depleted soil and stressed plants, in turn, become far more vulnerable to infestation and infection.
By contrast, ecological farming – and natural farming in particular – recognises that nature maintains its own equilibrium; no single species is meant to dominate the landscape. Lychee trees, for example, may host lychee stink bugs, but they also attract predators that naturally keep those populations in check. When pests or diseases appear, the farm therefore does not rush to eradicate them. If the soil or crops appear to be struggling, the response might be to introduce an organic amendment such as worm castings. As Pengcheng Farm’s instructor explains, these organic feeds closely resemble naturally formed humus. Unlike synthetic fertilisers, which can spike nitrogen or specific nutrients to unnatural levels, they work with the land to restore its innate vitality, fostering a harmonious balance among the soil, the crops and the microbial community.
When we can release our attachments and anxieties, calmly discern what is truly required, and learn by observing the rhythms of the natural world to understand what the crops themselves need, we come to grasp how to let go and strike a balance – especially when resources are constrained.
III. Gift Two: Simplicity and Steadiness
After we’d finished moving the tree, we sat down together to chat about our hopes for the farm internship and how we’d split the household chores. Then came picking and washing vegetables, skipping rope with Wowo, dinner, and watching Teacher Roger’s instructional videos on natural farming. Finally, after washing up and dealing with a few messages on my phone, I switched off the light and went to bed, bringing a half-day of farm life to a close at a wonderfully leisurely pace.
The next morning at seven o’clock, I got up to begin the day, with the main tasks being digging drainage ditches and hilling the corn. Over the following month or so, I practised farm work alongside Teacher Pengcheng and Huahua, learning the ropes of weed control, soil preparation, raising seedlings, sowing, fertilising, hilling, mulching, and pruning. At the same time, I shared the domestic duties: boiling water, picking vegetables, cooking, and keeping things tidy.
Most of the labour on the farm was straightforward enough; it was simply hard work on the body. The one task that genuinely tested me was pruning fruit trees. It lacks rigid rules, is fairly intricate, and involves a fair few technical terms and techniques—such as heading back, pinching out, thinning fruit, rubbing off suckers, and cutting back. There is considerable nuance to knowing which parts to cut, when to do it, and exactly how to go about it.
In the beginning, Teacher Pengcheng would demonstrate as he explained. With so many terms and concepts to take in all at once, I found it hard to grasp and retain everything, which left me feeling rather tense and anxious. Fortunately, Teacher Pengcheng was incredibly patient. He would go over things again and again without so much as a sigh, and he fully respected the pace at which I learned. He never rushed me to master the skills just so I could jump in and help, which gave me the space to relax, learn, and think things through. After hearing it several times over, things began to click. I gradually grew confident enough to start making my own judgements on how to prune.
There were times when I was the only person on the farm, yet I never felt lonely. I would happily swing my hoe while listening to a podcast on the Chinese solar terms called *Tuanli Structure*, recorded by several pioneers in ecological agriculture. Or I’d listen to nothing at all, simply staying present as I knelt in the vegetable patch, pulling weeds.
At other times, I’d wander around the farm and the surrounding countryside to familiarise myself with the local plants, or hop on my e-bike to join events at Yinlin Farm nearby. Out and about, I’d often come across the local women in the village. Even if we’d never met, a friendly greeting would flow naturally.
IV. Gift Three: Relaxation and Composure
Aside from the trust and encouragement from Teacher Pengcheng and Huanhua, which helped me relax, spending time close to the soil and embracing a slower pace of life on the beautiful farm were also key to helping me find a sense of peace and composure.
Once I let go of my tension, I began to truly enjoy cooking. I found myself handling it with ease, no longer needing to hunt down recipes in advance as I once did. Instead, I could simply create freely with whatever was on hand—glancing at what produce was available on the farm, briefly considering how to pair them, preparing the ingredients, and then getting straight into the stir-fry.
Cooking in this manner was thoroughly enjoyable and deeply fulfilling. I often felt my stir-fries were a feast for the senses. Of course, there were also quite a few occasions when things didn’t go entirely to plan: shredded potatoes burning at the bottom of the wok, fish skin sticking stubbornly to the pan, or a mugwort and egg broth turning unexpectedly bitter…
Over the past couple of years, my friends and I have grown increasingly aware of a simple truth: when we take good care of our meals, our days tend to be far more pleasant, and our work naturally flows more efficiently. Eating three proper, regular meals signals a structured life; it allows us to tune our tasks to a sustainable rhythm and keeps our energy reserves consistently full and steady.
This led me to realise that one of the profound values of engaging with agriculture and food systems lies in reclaiming a more holistic way of life, allowing us to become more authentic, grounded, and richly fulfilled individuals.
Yet, what does a “complete life” actually look like? I suppose everyone carries their own understanding and vision of it. For me, a complete life extends beyond work; it must, at the very least, encompass nourishing meals, proper rest, and domestic chores;
A complete life means engaging directly with real, tangible matters, rather than drifting in lofty, impractical abstractions; it means embracing our past, anchoring ourselves in the present, and looking towards the future;
A complete life is one where we remain attuned to our immediate surroundings, fostering genuine interactions with those around us, rather than feeling confined to our homes or offices and relying solely on smartphones to bridge the gap with the world.
V. Gift Four: Acceptance and Flow
Today, I’ve discovered that the way to break free from this cycle lies in acceptance and flow. Much like nature embraces everything as it is, I’ve learned to accept my own imperfections and whatever the present moment brings. In this regard, I’ve learned immensely from Teacher Pengcheng and Huanhua at the farm.
Pengcheng Natural Farm is dedicated not only to ecological agriculture but also once ran a co-parenting collective, bringing together several families in the village to raise children together. Although the collective had temporarily wound down by the time of my internship, I still gleaned a great deal from Teacher Pengcheng and Huanhua’s distinctive approach to parenting.
What strikes me most is their remarkable emotional steadiness, which has fostered a nurturing environment filled with love, acceptance, and encouragement for their daughter, Wowo. There was a period when Wowo developed a strong reluctance to attend kindergarten after being bullied. Rather than dismissing her feelings or rushing to intervene, Teacher Pengcheng and Huanhua held space for her emotions. They gently guided her to face her fears courageously and worked alongside her to find practical solutions.
I’ve also always been the type to relentlessly ask “why,” and my time on the farm was no exception. I vividly remember pruning lychee trees one day; I fired off a few questions, and Teacher Pengcheng shared quite a bit. One answer touched on the tree’s growth cycle, something along the lines of “pruning around August encourages new buds to sprout more easily.” Naturally, I immediately followed up with another “why?” Instead of launching into a botanical explanation, Teacher Pengcheng gently advised me to stop questioning it. “Nature simply works this way,” he said. “Learn to go with the flow of nature; observe in due time, and you’ll understand.”
VI. What My Eco-Farm Internship Has Meant to Me
I was fortunate that Foodthink and Pengcheng Natural Farm offered me the opportunity to return to rural life, setting me on this journey of learning about agroecology and gifting me with so many invaluable experiences. Each day spent interning at the farm brought a profound sense of calm, ease, groundedness, and stability. Time here moves at a gentler pace, free from so much of the usual hustle, making it easier to live in the moment and bring mind and body into alignment.
Though the placement lasted just over a month, I am deeply glad to have taken this vital step—to do what I truly wished to do, and to gain hands-on experience and observation within agroecology.
I did end the internship because I simply lacked the physical stamina, but that has not led me to conclude that working in agroecology is too arduous or unsuited to me. Rather, the experience sharpened my awareness of how vital health truly is, and confirmed that this is, indeed, the life I want.
A desire for better health—for myself and for others alike—is also a key reason I turned to agroecology. I will continue to forge ahead, and the vivid, living lessons from my time at Pengcheng Farm will remain a constant current in my life. I intend to be a conduit, passing these seeds of hope on to as many people as I can.
Following three successful recruitment cycles to date, the programme has supported over 60 participants across more than ten eco-farms nationwide, with placements ranging from three months to a year.
Editor: Yu Yang