Organic production, sustainable farming methods, and agroecological practices.
Meicuntou, with fewer than four hundred permanent residents, faces “village extinction.” Fan Hanquan offers his own land and housing free for three years to attract ecological farmers, while the village collective’s 2023 trial planting lost 70,000 yuan and the land was left fallow in 2024.
South floods, north droughts, back-to-back typhoons – smallholder farmers bear the brunt. From stress-tolerant varieties to crop rotation and intercropping, agroecology digging deep alongside farmers is agriculture’s fundamental path through the climate crisis.
Qin Xianrong, a 1990s-born returnee, has farmed 60 mu of sloping land in Dadu’gang, Xishuangbanna, for four years—growing pineapples, passion fruit and macadamia nuts almost wild, no chemical fertiliser, pesticide or watering. Amid rubber plantations and tea gardens, he explores a way of reconnecting with the land.
Four eco-farms—Lexiangu, Yuefengdao, Wuyuetian and Fukang Shengliang—span the region from Shanghai to Jiaxing; their losses ranged from minor damage to nearly a whole year’s work down the drain, with scale, infrastructure and farming methods the decisive variables.
Once young teachers who had both worked in nature education, Antian and Sanqi spent six months interning at Yinlin Village’s ecological farm in Guangdong – planting, organising events, running the café. Now they are determined to return to the countryside and build their own farm.
Weekly supply at Xiaoliushu Farm, Shunyi, has dropped from 200 boxes to 40; at Kongkonggu Farm, Pinggu, aubergines and tomatoes were nearly all lost. Autumn sowing is delayed by almost a month, and national wholesale prices are up 40%.
Jinzi grows heirloom yellow garden peas using biodynamic farming on mountains above 3,000 metres in Xiaojin County, Aba Prefecture. Shipping lasts only about two weeks a year; this year, three jin of pods finally reached the dining buddies’ table.
Nichole, 55, spent a decade turning her Texas yards into a jungle of food and herbs without chemical fertilisers or pesticides. She and Yunnanese Zhang Yiqing — a cross-generational pair — bonded over refusing the American suburban lawn before Nichole moved to rural Pennsylvania to practise permaculture on larger land.
Former high-school maths teacher Lü Lu spent three months interning at Xiqing Farm in Daxing, Beijing. Working with the earth each day, she found years of troublesome allergies finally gone – and learned to keep the growth of thirty-odd crops constantly on her mind.
At Pengcheng Natural Farm in Yinlin Village, Conghua—pruning lychee branches, leaving grass to nourish the soil, reduced tillage and less fertilising—these everyday labours of Natural Farming were four gifts of letting go, simplicity, relaxation and acceptance from an ecological agriculture internship.
