When 996 Workers Meet a Sustainable Farm’s Work Ethic
I. The Work Ethic at Baicaoyuan
Baicaoyuan is situated on Yirun Planting Farm in Gangbei District, Guigang City, Guangxi. The land was originally jointly leased in 2017 by Yan Ping, her husband, and their niece and nephew. The three families cultivated it together at first, but their collaboration eventually broke down. For the niece and nephew, avoiding herbicides and synthetic fertilisers meant facing unpredictable annual yields. For Yan Ping, however, the damage inflicted on the working and living environment was simply intolerable. Moreover, she recognised that relying on chemicals carried with it an alienating work ethic that fractures the connection between body and mind.
Today, the Hundred-Herb Garden stands as its own distinct territory, sharply divided from the plots belonging to Yan Ping’s niece and nephew. Where the garden is fragrant with blossoms and fruit, wild with grasses, and alive with fireflies after dark, the adjacent plots lie barren and desolate.
Across Yan Ping’s fifty mu of land, the majority is planted with Orah mandarins, yielding around fifteen tonnes each year. She feels no regret over the fruit that drops prematurely; though it falls to the ground, it enriches the soil. Likewise, the weeds and insects that might seem to impede the orchards actually play a vital role in nurturing the earth and bolstering biodiversity. This philosophy towards land and crops is deeply reflected in Yan Ping’s approach to work.
“I’m never in a rush when I work. When I’m tired, I lie down in the grass to rest. It’s more like playing while working.” For Yan Ping and the friends learning at the Hundred-Herb Garden, work places mind and body at the centre. Rather than becoming a burden that overwhelms us, labour nourishes and fulfils our mind and body. Liu Heng, a partner at the farm, observes and records the changes in the crops daily; this practice feeds his curiosity and sense of care. Meanwhile, intern Sanmu often becomes so absorbed in mowing that he enters a state of ‘flow’. By noon, I have to call him from the balcony, along with Linda, who is meditating in the grass, for lunch.
Yan Ping treats simple tasks like weeding as a form of practice, a way to cultivate both mind and body. She genuinely finds contentment in this labour and hopes others might embrace such a simple life. To her, spiritual practice simply means “repeating simple things”. Still, we only work for half the day; the rest is free to do as we please. Some practise martial arts, some sit in meditation, some drink tea, and some read poetry aloud… Later, Yan Ping bought calligraphy supplies, and we began learning to write.
Among the learning community at the Hundred-Herb Garden are former management consultants who earned substantial salaries, and others who held comfortable, low-stress technical roles. Yet the former found their work utterly draining, leaving them mentally and physically depleted, while the latter sank into a protracted sense of emptiness. In these roles, one feels reduced to a cog without autonomy, merely at the mercy of others. The paradox of this work ethic is stark: to participate in the division of labour and be considered useful, one must accept being treated as a replaceable part.
For workers like us, including the farmers in Wule Town who rely on chemical inputs, this paradox is painfully obvious. I’m sure they also detest the smell of herbicides and grow weary of labour that alienates them from their own bodies and minds. Yet without an understanding of ecological agriculture, and with little power to choose in the marketplace, they can only operate within market rules, gradually falling into an unconscious rut.
Mencius observed, “The people’s return to benevolence is as natural as water seeking the lowest ground.” In other words, compassion is our inherent nature, as instinctive as gravity. What is termed “inhumanity” is merely numbness—hence the phrase “numb to humanity”. Today’s society, dominated by capital, technology, and consumerism, actively encourages this numbness. Those who refuse to go numb become obstacles to the continued expansion of capital, technology, and consumer culture.
II. Old Seeds, New Hopes
The Bai Ku Yao village where Uncle Youming lives is, in itself, a place where deities and humans share the same space. Miracles, to them, are a concrete and unquestionable presence. The village once possessed a remarkably complete and self-consistent cultural system, encompassing healthcare, education, diet, farming, festivals, clothing, family values, and social organisation. Living within this framework, the Bai Ku Yao people forged their own character, enduring alongside all things in nature, and formed a community where the natural world is treated with compassion and human society is bound by righteousness.
Like Sister Yanping, Uncle Youming left his hometown in his early years to work in the city. He found no sense of belonging, only loneliness, and the prospect of a decent future from manual labour was slim. After eight years of migrant work, he returned home in 2008, only to discover how much things had changed. Overuse of herbicides had left the fields barren, with not a blade of grass in sight, and the soil had turned hard and compacted.
On top of that, the village’s traditional ethnic culture was steadily unraveling. When Uncle Youming was young, they planted just one crop a year. Aside from the busy farming season, they only needed to work for two or three months. What did they do the rest of the year? They relaxed together—hunting, wandering the hills, and taking part in traditional cultural festivals. “Why not keep living like that?” I asked. “Because everyone wants to make money,” Uncle Youming sighed.
“In the past, people were always willing to help one another and lived closely together. Now, whenever help is needed, it’s all about wages. Most young people have gone to the cities to work, abandoning their ethnic identity. The elders’ words no longer carry any weight with them.” Uncle Youming is often disheartened by the village’s gradual loss of its cooperative and neighbourly spirit.
Does earning a living in modern society necessarily mean drifting apart from, or even destroying, the land and way of life handed down through generations? Driven by this very concern, Uncle Youming resolved to take matters into his own hands and pursue ecological farming.
With support from a non-profit organisation, Uncle Youming initially ran planting trials using hybrid seeds. His plan was to gradually reduce pesticide and fertiliser use year by year until phasing them out entirely, but the harvests were dismal. The following year, the organisation brought in an expert from Yunnan who supplied his own batch of heirloom seeds, yet it still didn’t work. Realising that seed selection needed to be carefully matched to local conditions—the principle of “right seed for the right soil”—Uncle Youming applied to source heirloom varieties native to Guangxi. Only then did he finally succeed.
From then on, Uncle Youming was convinced that developing ecological agriculture meant conserving these heirloom seeds—varieties that had evolved naturally alongside the local ecosystem and could be saved for replanting. The hybrid or genetically modified seeds most commonly used today cannot be saved for the next season. “If farmers rely solely on commercially purchased seeds, they are effectively stripped of control over part of their means of production.” This realisation only strengthened his commitment to preserving heirloom seeds.
Whenever the opportunity arose, he scoured for heirloom seeds—whether in his own village, elsewhere across China, or even abroad—collecting them whenever possible until he eventually established his own living ecological seed bank. He conserves rice seeds in stages across upland plots, balconies, trial fields, and main fields. His notebooks, brimming with detailed learning and sowing records, bear witness to a true pioneer of ecological farming.
Thus were old methods of production and old ways of life cast aside. People were swept into this new world, only to realise they were not its masters, but rootless and disoriented travellers unable to put down roots. Looking back, they found that the homestead of the old world had already been destroyed by their own hands. Their fate mirrors that of heirloom seeds: once people grew accustomed to buying commercial varieties, the old seeds, long neglected in selection and breeding, grew frail and disease-prone, completely losing their competitive edge against market-bought newcomers.
III. “A Vast Realm, Full of Promise”
In truth, this yearning for a renewed work ethic and a humanistic tradition capable of taking root is shared by countless young people today. Even if some remain unaware of it, a glance at the complaints and critiques of exploitative work routines and lifestyles flooding platforms like Xiaohongshu reveals a deep-seated longing to break free from the status quo.
Today, whenever rural revitalisation is discussed, ecological farming often comes up. Yet I believe that if we frame revitalisation solely around ecological cultivation, the very vitality of “revitalisation” will remain hollow. But if we, like Sister Yanping, invest the Baicaoyuan with hopes for a renewed work ethic, or follow Uncle Youming’s lead in viewing ecological agriculture as a safeguard for cultural autonomy—understanding the bond between ecological farming and rural revitalisation through the lens of people’s aspirations, and their desire for a new way of living and being—then I believe we can truly embrace the notion that “a vast realm holds boundless promise.”
To date, three recruitment cycles have been completed, supporting over 60 interns across more than a dozen ecological farms nationwide, with placements ranging from three months to a year.
Editor: Zheng Yuyang