No More Involution for Kids – Off to the Farm to Run Wild! | Food Talk Vol.17
In Europe and Japan, children learning through nature and agriculture has a history spanning many years. Every year, schoolchildren are taken out by their schools to the fields to learn how to sow, nurture and make food – from the classroom to the outdoors, from spring sowing to autumn harvest. This movement has now swept into China, too. The “Feiniao yu Mingchong” (Flying Birds and Singing Insects) farm, nestled in Miyun on the outskirts of Beijing, is one such farm dedicated to nature and food education.
In this episode, we have invited Yifang from the Feiniao yu Mingchong farm and Xiao Yunsheng from the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market as our guests, along with host Xiao Jing. All three are mothers based in Beijing, each working in fields connected to nature and agriculture. Their conversation shared not only amusing stories of their own children and nature, but also unearthed the unique significance a farm can hold for children:
In today’s ever more urbanised and industrialised environment, “Nature Deficit Disorder” is becoming increasingly prevalent; a farm may well serve as a trigger for reconnecting with nature.
Food carries hidden production processes beyond the boundaries of city life, and getting close to food growing and making on a farm can deepen one’s understanding of people and society.
Most importantly, knowledge gained from books must all connect to the real world; only then can we break free of the abstract and find a sense of reality. A farm is the perfect place to discover those real connections – nature’s abundance makes up for the barrenness of a desk, the long process of the harvest tempers the craving for instant gratification, and the uncertainty of “relying on the heavens for a living” soothes the anxieties of involution.
Progress and growth come in far more ways than “involution for children” – listen to what they have to say in this episode.
This Episode’s Guests
Yifang
Co-founded the Feiniao yu Mingchong farm with Jinpoluo Village in Miyun in 2018. For over a decade before becoming a farmer, she was an agricultural programme officer for an international organisation, travelling the world over.
Xiao Yunsheng
Has worked as a journalist and an amateur farmer, and sold produce at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market for ten years.
This Episode’s Host
Xiao Jing
A newcomer to food and agriculture, currently learning about food and biodiversity; mother of two little ones. Having been an adult for so long, she has found it curious that wherever she goes, what children love most remains playing in the sand and crunching fallen leaves.
Timeline
06:59 Having come full circle, the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market is 12 years old: vegetables that taste of vegetables, meat that tastes of meat, and shopping that carries a human touch.
09:44 Do children naturally love nature? Children who tag along with their parents to the market, children who bounce for 12 hours on the farm, children who spent their childhoods on farms in Europe, and children who overcame their fear of insects in a yurt on the open grassland.
17:16 Humans evolved over tens of millions of years in nature; more than a century of industrialisation is not going to rewrite our genes.
20:20 Dutch documentary Garden School: In countries such as those in Europe and Japan, nature education is a compulsory subject for primary and secondary school students – is the aim to equip every child with the knowledge of cultivation and turn them into high-tech farmers?
30:55 Children who come to the farmers’ market have never known a sense of food scarcity in their daily lives: rather than deliberately delaying gratification or logging a 100-day streak, why not try planting a seed, or spending the summer waiting for a peach to ripen naturally?
38:12 P-Cheng, the baker at Feiniao yu Mingchong: What is it like to graduate from Peking University Law School and make bread on a farm?
41:31 The significance of farm life for children: what is known as “relying on the heavens for a living” means embracing uncertainty to the fullest extent – something missing from a modern education that prizes probability and stability.
44:46 On the ecological farm, rediscovering the biodiversity of the land.
50:31 Young people in the countryside are coming back: no need for a two-hour commute – a sense of fulfilment through work can be found at home, too.
54:41 Every small choice a consumer makes shapes the future of society; every egg you buy matters.
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Podcast Production Team
Planning and Production: Xiao Jing
Podcast Cover Art: Wan Lin
Music: Banong
Editing: Wang Hao
Contact Email: xiaojing@foodthink.cn