Apples, Matsutake and Yaks: How they benefit the environment, farmers and consumers | Food Talk Vol.48

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In this episode of Food Talk, we are joined by the social enterprise Muyunpo to explore how they work with villagers to seek fairer, more sustainable methods of production—protecting nature while bringing high-quality local products to a wider market, ensuring farmers earn a better living.

Xiaojin County, located in the Jiarong Tibetan region of Aba Prefecture, Sichuan, is a five-to-six-hour drive from Chengdu. The dramatic altitude shifts and diverse terrain provide the ideal conditions for a rich array of premium agricultural products. Over a decade ago, the non-profit organisation ‘Chengdu Shuguang Community Development Capability Building Centre’ arrived here. Like many such organisations, after years of implementing poverty alleviation and development projects, ‘Shuguang’ began helping mountain farmers sell their goods. However, they eventually forged a different path.

Muyunpo was founded in 2017 to manage the sale of these agricultural products. As a social enterprise, it exists not for profit, but to serve the interests of the community. By organising villagers to harvest, plant, and graze together, Muyunpo has revitalised the village. Any surplus from sales is returned to the village groups at the end of the year, allowing public funds to flow back into the community. Unlike the traditional ‘farmer-trader’ dynamic—often marked by mutual suspicion and the farmer’s vulnerability to market whims—Muyunpo prioritises trust and cooperation. The village groups make their own decisions and set their own standards, with the social enterprise providing support from behind the scenes.

Years of dedication have resulted in healthier, higher-quality products that are more environmentally sustainable: sustainably harvested matsutake and morels, ecologically grown apples and cherries, Sichuan peppercorns and peppercorn oil, heritage grains, and free-range yak meat. In this episode, Muyunpo’s Yunhui and Xixi share the vivid stories behind these products.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • How difficult is it to bypass the middlemen to ensure higher earnings from matsutake and morels?
  • How have a group of Tibetan mothers managed to protect the environment while harvesting wild mushrooms?
  • What efforts are required from the villagers to maintain the traditional free-range state of yak farming?
  • How can community strength be harnessed to build trust in the production-sales relationship and maintain production standards?
  • How do the villagers utilise the sales surpluses that are returned to the community?

Guests

Host

Timeline

00:52 What is a social enterprise? The birth and mission of “Muyunpo”: How to break the deadlock when a public welfare organisation enters a village and finds that farmers are producing high-quality crops but failing to make money?

07:00 Matsutake mushrooms have so many grades—could this actually be a trade secret? How did the workers at Muyunpo transform from complete novices into market insiders?

15:51 Even delicious morels can be over-harvested. How can the “tragedy of the commons” be overcome and villagers persuaded to prevent resources from being depleted?

28:37 Why has the sustainable harvesting of morels given the village mothers a greater voice?

31:58 Free-range vs penned fattening: How changes in yak farming methods are leading to the disappearance of traditions in the Xiaojin Tibetan region.

38:39 Sichuan pepper, apples, mixed grains… other agricultural products managed by Muyunpo.

41:08 In an era of mistrust, why are ordinary people willing to follow Muyunpo in changing their farming methods?

42:46 How precious are heirloom apple varieties? Villagers pick fruit from their own orchards to send to children living far away.

48:18 If you want to support sustainable agriculture, what can you do?

Women of the morel harvesting group.
The sustainable harvesting group sorting and weighing the day’s matsutake harvest.
What is sustainable harvesting? The morel harvesting group’s consensus is: do not harvest morels shorter than 3cm, do not remove the soil from the roots, and bring back any litter generated during the harvesting process.
The “muddy bases” of morels are of low quality and generally not eaten. However, when villagers sell to traders, they often harvest these bases as well to make more money, which has become an unspoken rule in the industry. The resulting consequence is that the morels cannot continue to grow.
The morel cooperative group used retained public funds to give a box of milk to every villager over the age of 65.
Muyunpo’s fruit cultivation group organising pruning technique training.
Mr Yang, a villager, providing winter supplementary feed to yaks. Due to time constraints, this episode cannot cover all the content regarding yaks. Those interested can search for more on Muyunpo’s official WeChat account.
Xixi and Yunhui at the 2024 Guangzhou Harvest Festival; their products were in high demand at the market.

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All images provided by Muyunpo

Music: Banong

Production: Xiaojing

Editing: Wang Hao

Contact email: xiaojing@foodthink.cn

Published by Foodthink