Learning from the Rainforest: Life as a Happy Eco-Farmer in Banna

To reach Dadugang, one must pass through the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. In the spring of 2020, sixteen Asian elephants made a sensational journey from here, trekking north all the way to Kunming before returning to the rainforest. Their migration was believed to be linked to the expansion of human activity over recent decades; the rubber plantations and tea gardens flashing past the car window are a microcosm of the shrinking habitats these herds face.

It is easy to destroy a forest, but far harder to rebuild one. It is not only the landscape and ecology that have been altered, but the very relationship between people and the land. Agricultural land carved out of the rainforest years ago is not easily restored on a large scale. Beyond the monoculture of rubber and tea, is there a more sustainable way to utilise this land?

Amidst the rolling vistas of tea gardens and rubber forests, the 60 mu of sloping land leased by Xiao Qin is lush with wild grass and humming with bees and butterflies. Coexisting with pineapples and macadamia trees, it feels like a misplaced sanctuary, offering us a glimmer of hope.

I. Returning Home

Born in 1993, Xiao Qin is Han Chinese, but he is Banna through and through. Having just passed the age of thirty, he has spent the last four years back in his hometown, establishing himself within the ecological farming community through his few dozen mu of pineapples, passion fruit, and macadamia nuts. His entry into the field was, in many ways, accidental.

After graduating from university in 2015, Xiao Qin spent two years working for a petrochemical company in Banna, primarily travelling to villages to sell gas stoves. The pay was good and his superiors were keen to promote him, but Xiao Qin harboured a dream of entrepreneurship. “Back then, I used to watch ‘Ways to Wealth’ on CCTV-7; it left me feeling absolutely inspired!” he recalls. It was then that his interest in agriculture first took root.

Fortunately, the success stories on television did not cloud his judgement. During those two years travelling the countryside of Banna, Xiao Qin realised that conventional agricultural produce simply didn’t fetch a fair price; farmers had no choice but to compete relentlessly on scale and yield. To produce as much as possible on limited land, chemical sprays became a necessity. “To grow bananas, you have to spray herbicide at least four times—it’s just too toxic,” he says.

Eventually, he developed a psychological barrier even when buying vegetables at the local market. This led him to search for information on ecological agriculture, and in 2018, he finally resigned to join the Sharing Harvest Ecological Farm in Shunyi, Beijing.

Perhaps with the fearless confidence of youth, the then twenty-something Xiao Qin felt that ecological planting techniques weren’t the difficult part—the real challenge was finding the right market. Working in online customer service at Sharing Harvest, and occasionally helping with deliveries, he was able to interact directly with consumers and build his experience. After two years, as planned, Xiao Qin returned to Banna to become a returnee youth.

Although he cannot avoid the “returnee” label when introducing himself, Xiao Qin has always felt that he didn’t truly “return”. Although he spent two years in Beijing, his sole objective was to come back; in his heart, he felt he had never left. He told himself that he must return to Banna bringing new experience and resources. Thus, resigning to return home was not an act of swimming against the tide, but rather a natural progression.

Farming is arduous and exhausting. Whether it is working the land, harvesting and processing, packing and shipping, or handling after-sales service, nothing comes easily. Whenever his parents, out of concern for him, questioned his decision to return, Xiao Qin would respond half-jokingly, “This decision was actually your doing.” He is grateful for the upbringing his parents provided; by going away to university and broadening his horizons, his perspectives and way of thinking were bound to change. After all, what is wrong with choosing an unconventional path?

A shared passion for quality food became the common ground where Xiao Qin and his parents reconciled their differing views. Since venturing into ecological farming, the family has eaten only ecological rice. The delicious spread they served us this visit had a clear provenance for every dish: the peanuts, edamame, and loofah were grown by Xiao Qin’s mother; the wild mushrooms and bee pupae were seasonal mountain delicacies; there was free-range pork bought from a neighbour, and ecological fruits grown by fellow farmers from various regions. It was truly enviable.

At the start of the year, Xiao Qin’s parents retired and wasted no time in carving out a small vegetable garden within the pineapple field. They are already eating their own peanuts, and sesame and sweet potatoes will be harvested soon. Our visit coincided with the sowing of soybeans. Xiao Qin’s parents, working one after the other to fertilise and plant the beans, were clearly finding joy in the labour.

II. Growing Wild

Xiao Qin rented this piece of land two years ago and planted 30,000 pineapples, which won’t start coming to market until next summer. Looking at the rows of upright, tidy pineapple crowns, I couldn’t help asking him: “Do pineapples have to be planted this densely?”

He smiled. “I once heard a teacher from Taiwan say that pineapples are afraid of ghosts. If you plant them closer together, they huddle up and won’t be scared anymore.”

“Afraid of ghosts” was, of course, a joke. In reality, as far back as the 1970s, agronomists in Taiwan had proven through field experiments that dense planting not only significantly increases yield per plant but also helps with weed control and soil and water conservation. This single-row dense planting technique was subsequently rolled out. The most common variety in Xiao Qin’s field, the thornless Smooth Cayenne, was also originally introduced from Taiwan.

Although he uses the same single-row dense planting method, Xiao Qin’s ecological pineapples are smaller, with yields one-third to a half lower than conventional ones. The difference lies in his approach: he doesn’t induce flowering, uses no chemical fertilisers or pesticides, and does no irrigation. He relies solely on goat manure and macadamia green husk compost as base fertiliser. Aside from weeding five or six times a year, the management of these pineapples is almost like letting them grow wild.

In Banna at the end of September, the temperature is pleasant, and the fresh grass just cut and spread between the rows gives off a wafting fragrance. Xiao Qin says that his principle for field management is to “weed without removing the roots”; while the grass absorbs some of the pineapple’s nutrients, the roots help the pineapples retain water, creating a symbiotic relationship. Mulching with cut grass keeps the soil warm and moist, improving the local microclimate and helping to mitigate the effects of drought and water shortages to some extent.

“The last two years have been very dry; it hardly rained at all between February and April this year.” Aware of the risks posed by climate change, Xiao Qin has already dug several small water reservoirs in his fields, but when the drought hits hard, they are merely a drop in the ocean. He also considered damming the ditch at the bottom of the slope to store water and pumping it up for irrigation, but he hasn’t yet reached an agreement with the neighbouring farmers. For now, he is at the mercy of the weather.

Fortunately, for fruit, drought isn’t entirely a bad thing. Too much rain hinders sugar accumulation, making the flavour less rich—”it’s like when a person gets oedema,” Xiao Qin explains. Looking back, this year’s pineapples were indeed full of flavour; they came from his third aunt’s land, an abandoned hillside that he took over when he first returned home in 2020.

If these 60 mu at Dadugang represent Xiao Qin’s “Pineapple 2.0”, that hillside was the 1.0 version from his trial-and-error phase, where grass grew thick and pineapples were sparse. To save on seedlings at the time, the pineapples were planted irregularly and thinly, meaning the grass had to be cut by hand with a sickle, which made management cumbersome. With a gradient of between 30 and 45 degrees, an average person would tire just standing there for a while, let alone working all day under the scorching sun.

Returning home didn’t mean Xiao Qin forgot the friendships he forged during his days selling gas. He reached out to two Jino friends who were still farming and partnered with them to grow and manage passion fruit.

One of these friends, Saoqie, farmed a plot that was even more extreme than “Pineapple 1.0”, situated at the bottom of a valley with a slope of around fifty to sixty degrees. To get there, one first has to ride a motorbike to the roadside and then climb down; without some hiking experience, reaching the plot is practically impossible. When asked why he chose to grow passion fruit in such a place, Saoqie gave a small smile and an answer that didn’t quite hit the mark: “I used to grow winter melon.” We all let out a collective gasp and didn’t press him further.

Xiao Qin admitted that with the plots so scattered, he couldn’t possibly oversee everything personally. Half his time and energy were consumed by the commute, let alone improving techniques and quality control. Consequently, by the third year of his venture, he rented these 60 mu near his home to consolidate management, keeping only one passion fruit plot, which he intercropped with macadamia trees.

III. Finding the Way

As part of an alternative food network, ecological farming involves more than just new production methods; it requires rebuilding the infrastructure between production and sales to ensure they work in harmony.

Conventional produce relies on chemical fertilisers and pesticides to force growth and ripening, and some are even shipped out using preservatives before they are fully ripe. As for the flavour, additives are used during the processing stage. In contrast, ecological produce not only avoids chemical fertilisers and pesticides during growth but is typically harvested and shipped only after the fruit or vegetable has naturally ripened, resulting in a richer taste. This presents a new set of challenges for ecological farmers.

The same applies to processed goods. If you use heirloom wheat flour to make hanging noodles, can they actually “hang” without the addition of salt? For biscuits with low sugar, low oil, and no additives, how do you maintain the texture while ensuring they don’t crumble? Without the aid of industrial shortcuts, can ecological products balance original flavour with visual appeal?

Passion fruit had been a long-standing headache for Xiao Qin. Conventional passion fruit is treated with preservatives before transport, but Xiao Qin’s fruit is shipped directly from the source. By the time it reaches the consumer via courier, the flavour remains, but the skin inevitably becomes shrivelled. Consumers who don’t understand this often leave poor reviews based on appearance alone, some even accusing the producer of selling inferior goods.

Mentioning this made Xiao Qin feel quite bashful, but he is also deeply grateful for the understanding and tolerance of various partnership platforms within the ecological circle. They have helped him find consumers who understand the value of ecological food and have assisted in handling customer complaints, allowing him to focus on production. With the support of these “knowledgeable and professional” platforms and consumers, Xiao Qin feels he should further refine his techniques and improve quality control.

His increasingly refined macadamia processing was also the result of trial and error. Macadamias are native to Australia and have been grown in China for many years. Farmers in Banna simply call them “nuts”, usually selling the raw fruit directly to traders or factories.

Xiao Qin realised that this new local “speciality” could fill a gap in the ecological market. He started by selling fresh fruit, but since consumers in the north were not very familiar with them, Xu Liang—who coordinates with farmers at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market—suggested that he try roasting them himself to sell as dried nuts. This experiment resulted in a best-selling product.

In the first year, lacking experience, he used a machine from a town fruit shop meant for roasting chestnuts, which was far too inefficient. After roasting, the whole family had to work together to crack open the nuts, adding another cumbersome step to the process.

Over the last two years, he has gradually acquired a green nut peeling machine, a colour sorter, and a cracking machine. With the colour sorter to differentiate fruit by size, he can avoid uneven roasting, making it easier for the roastmaster to control the heat.

Xiao Qin put a batch of macadamias roasted the previous day into the cracking machine, preparing a custom set for us to take back to Beijing. Prying open the hard shells, the milky-white kernels were crunchy, and the rich oiliness was deeply satisfying—far more fragrant than any I had tasted before. “How do you get this milky aroma?” I asked, smacking my lips.

“Macadamias roasted in the shell naturally have a milky aroma! There’s no need for extra flavourings or additives,” Xiao Qin said proudly. He scoffed at the ingredient list of a certain snack brand’s macadamias. Before the 1,000-plus macadamia trees reached full production, he had finally found a viable path for the roasting process and quality control.

IV. Rediscovering the Local

In recent years, besides focusing on production, Xiao Qin has broadened his understanding of agriculture and biodiversity through public welfare exchange activities.

The exhibition “Citizen Participation in Biodiversity Conservation” at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences came as a significant revelation to him. Field visits to the Jino Mountains with the Farmer Seed Network also gave him a more direct understanding of the traditional ecological culture of the Jino people. As it turns out, returning home is not just about bringing new resources and experience back to one’s village; it is also a process of rediscovering local knowledge.

If more young people like Xiao Qin return home, bringing an ecological ethos, exploring new production-consumption models, carefully tending to the land and the community, and becoming producers with dignity alongside the villagers, the villages of the future will surely be different, won’t they?

Foodthink Author

zeen

Foodthink Editor