Discovering the ‘Happiness Fruit’ at Baicaoyuan | Two Years After Graduating in Agronomy, I Headed to a Farm to Learn from Scratch

I. Discovering Baicaoyuan: A New “Peach Blossom Spring”

I am twenty-four years old, from Chongzuo, over three hundred kilometres away, and majored in agriculture at university. After graduating, I returned to my hometown to work at a sugar company, where I was responsible for promoting agricultural policies and planting techniques. However, while travelling to rural areas to understand the sugar cane farmers’ practices, I noticed that locals relied heavily on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and they rarely wore protective gear when spraying.

After speaking with them in depth, I discovered that many farmers actually did not want to use such large quantities of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides. After all, they are a cost, and the price of agricultural inputs keeps rising while the required dosage only increases.

Yet, with low purchase prices for sugar cane, they felt they had no choice but to rely on chemical fertilisers and pesticides to maintain yields. It seemed there was simply no other way.

Since being introduced to ecological agriculture, I have often thought: perhaps by improving soil vitality and fertility, and boosting crops’ natural resistance, we could reduce the use of chemical fertilisers and lower pest and disease pressure on the crops.

I once read online about an apple grower who planted a specific type of herb beneath the trees to attract certain insects down from the canopy, thereby reducing the pest population on the apple trees themselves.

At the time, my days were filled with chemical controls such as carbendazim and pyraclostrobin. Witnessing biological control in practice—a technique born purely from an understanding of natural ecosystems—was profoundly eye-opening.

I realised then that ecological agriculture might well be an alternative path forward. Consequently, I have spent a great deal of time pondering the relationship between ecological farming and crop yields, soil health, and rural communities, trying to find where the balance truly lies.

Coincidentally, Foodthink launched its Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme earlier this year. After submitting applications, attending interviews, and completing a mutual selection process with the farm, another intern, “Dawang”, and I joined Yan Ping at her Happy Fruit Baicaoyuan. During this period, a third intern, Liu Heng, joined us. He was cycling from Zhuhai to Chengdu for his own internship and lived with us for nearly two weeks before continuing his journey.

Geographically, Happy Fruit Baicaoyuan consists of several dozen mu of land on the hillside of Xishanxia, Wule Town, Gangbei District, Guigang City, in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

In Xishanxia, local villagers dig wells for drinking water and cultivate rice, maize, and peanuts on the flatlands, along with fruit trees such as litchis, loquats, and longans. Meanwhile, most of the hillside plots planted with fruit trees are leased to outsiders like Yan Ping.

Before we arrived, Yan Ping spent most of her time living alone in a small wooden cabin she had built herself beside the orchard. The person she interacted with most was likely a farmhand living at the foot of the hill, whom we all, following Yan Ping’s lead, called “Daxiao”. Though the term usually implies a formal familial rank, to us young interns, she felt more like a warm, endearing free spirit. Yan Ping and Daxiao had shared many experiences and were as close as family, so we often dropped by her home to visit.

Happy Fruit Baicaoyuan often gives me the feeling of a “Peach Blossom Spring” – an idyllic, almost surreal place that feels detached from everyday life, yet here we truly live. There are no complicated social dynamics, and the pressures of survival seem to have vanished, or perhaps merely shifted their focus.

Here, a group of interns from varying ages and backgrounds, along with the farm owner Yan Ping and Daxiao, worked side by side. But our conversations went beyond ecology and farming philosophy; we discussed life, emotions, and human nature. In fact, it felt less like studying ecological agriculture and more like a form of personal cultivation – finding solutions or perhaps simply learning to let go, through the simplicity of daily work.

II. Labour: Weeds Outnumber the Bean Shoots

Let’s begin with the day-to-day realities of the internship. In short, it revolved around four main tasks: fruit picking, shipping, mowing grass, and planting. Baicaoyuan’s most prolific trees are Orah mandarins. Spread across a 50-mu slope, 40 mu host around 2,600 Orah mandarin trees, while the remainder are planted with Emperor mandarins.

Throughout our three-month stint, we watched the Orah mandarin trees transition from heavy with fruit to completely bare. What began with casually plucking sweet, juicy mandarins whenever we felt like it gradually shifted to scouring the ground beneath the canopy and through the grass while mowing, hoping to spot one or two missed fruits that had fallen. Between the two of us, I suppose we truly witnessed a complete Orah mandarin harvest season.

I thoroughly enjoyed the fruit picking. The sheer joy and deep satisfaction that comes from harvesting is something few other experiences can match. It often leaves me reflecting on how profoundly fulfilling the entire cycle must be: sowing a seed, patiently waiting for it to grow and ripen, and finally gathering the harvest.

Sister Yanping once wrote a passage that has been widely shared within the community of small ecological farmers:

I hold a vision of happiness

that we can all eat

and easily come by

food that is safe, healthy, and brimming with vitality

that we can cultivate

with ease and joy

crops that sustain us through the endless cycle of life

a modest plot of land, enough to feed a family for generations

Easier said than done.

In late March, the three of us interns planted some flowers, carefully digging holes for each. Yet by June, not a single flower had shown up, while beggar’s ticks had taken over the entire plot.

After the flowers went in, we planted peanuts brought by Da Wang and some local waxy corn. We dug holes, added fertiliser, dropped in the seeds, covered them with soil, and mulched with cut grass. We did manage to coax both the peanuts and corn into growing, but they certainly didn’t thrive.

In mid-April, it was time for cowpeas, peanuts, and sorghum. The approach was simple, verging on “rough and ready.” We’d toss the seeds between two rows of citrus trees, mow the grass, and pile it straight over the seeds as mulch, despite the weeds being quite entrenched. The sorghum that got proper planting holes fared well; the cowpeas I simply tossed in also did alright—at least they sprouted.

This series of “blind-box” planting experiments inevitably brought to mind two lines from Tao Yuanming: “I sow beans beneath the southern hill, / The grass grows thick, the bean shoots thin.” Beggar’s ticks are a highly competitive plant with strong allelopathic properties, meaning other species are left to eke out a living in the margins.

Realising this approach would likely result in no harvest, it felt as though Yan Ping’s hopes of supporting her family through the land might be dashed. When it came to planting cassava, she came up with a new method: first, mow the grass down until the soil is visible, then dig a hole and add compost (the quantity typically gauged by the senior sister’s experience). Drop in one or two cassava stem cuttings, cover with a layer of soil, and finally mulch over it with the cut grass, and that’s one cassava plant done! Looking back, the overall sprouting rate for the cassava ended up being quite moderate.

It sounds like a lengthy process, but in practice it’s not overly complicated—many hands make light work! After the cassava was planted, several heritage bean varieties arrived from Yuefeng Island Farm in Kunshan, along with corn and melon seeds sent by Yan Ping’s friend, and we set about sowing them.

We used hoes to dig a planting trench, applied fertiliser, scattered the seeds, covered them with soil, mulched over the top, and that was it! My hands earned a few extra blisters in the process. A few days later, little seedlings began to push through. Thankfully, this time the hard work truly paid off.

III. Life: Reaching the Summit, All Hills Lie Below

Away from work, life in the countryside has its ups and downs. Over the past three months, I have often made my way to the farm’s highest point. The mountains in my hometown of Chongzuo may not be lofty, yet they are steep and sheer, difficult to scale. By contrast, the hills in Guigang generally have gentler slopes and are covered in soil, making it easier to ascend and take in the beauty of the sunset. It brings to mind the verse: ‘Scale the highest peak, and all other mountains seem but small.’

Here I watch the stars at night, the sunset at dusk, and the afterglow that lingers after. I sit by the cabin’s railing, letting the evening breeze wash over me, and watch the moon rise in the south-east. I have always felt that once you have seen the sunset of a place, you can truly say you belong there.

But the most beautiful sight is still the morning sun rising over the east side of the cabin. Sunlight falls equally on every living thing. Plants use it for photosynthesis and transpiration, while animals rely on it to move, work, and forage. It is the sun that drives the cycle of life!

Yet do not underestimate the summer sun in Guangxi. It is entirely normal to be tanned several shades darker after working outdoors in the heat. At Baicaoyuan, I didn’t just pick up farming skills; I also came away with a lower leg covered in mosquito bites and marks.

When it comes to the greatest daily challenge here, fleas are impossible to avoid. I arrived when the weather was still cold, so the fleas were less active, and wearing long trousers and long sleeves to bed kept me mostly unaffected. But as temperatures rose over the following days, I found myself awake at night, itching and restless, which took a heavy toll on my sleep. One evening, while washing, I caught sight of a ring of swollen, red flea bites around my stomach, along with marks on my arms and thighs. I began to have second thoughts, asking myself whether I truly had to endure this “ordeal”.

Yet, quite miraculously, before I could decide whether to retreat, Yanping suggested we switch rooms amid Dawang’s and my complaints. Dawang was wary of the ground floor, fearing the lack of windows and doors made it unsafe; whereas I was absolutely fed up with the flea bites, so I readily agreed to move downstairs.

Once out of the attic, the flea problem was effectively solved. There were plenty of mosquitoes on the ground floor, but luckily their bites only left tiny red bumps—neither painful nor itchy, so it hardly mattered.

IV. Off to the Market to Sell Our Veg!

Let’s talk about the farm markets! In the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, traditional markets are known as *xushi* (or *wei*), and heading out to a market day is called *ganxu*. Late in March, we joined Sister Yan Ping at the Nanning Urban Farm Market.

The market runs over two weekend days, with the annual gathering taking place on the morning of the third day. As an observer, I listened in on discussions between stallholders and volunteers about the market.

The Nanning market struck me initially as rather quiet. March temperatures were still quite low, the stall area was right in the draft, and there were very few stalls—fewer than ten, if I recall correctly—so you could browse through them in just a few minutes. What stood out, however, was an agroecology team from Nandan. They work on the living conservation of heritage seeds, do tie-dye, and sell handmade crafts such as earrings and hair ties, alongside their own homemade wine. This was, to my mind, the most interesting and enriching part.

The weather improved the following day. A gentle morning sun began to warm the air, and numerous grandparents from the neighbouring residential blocks brought their grandchildren out for a stroll. During that half-hour window, footfall increased significantly, marking the busiest period I witnessed over the two days.

The farm market has a communal dining area where stallholders bring their own produce—fish, freshwater snails, pork, dried beancurd sticks, leafy greens, and more—to cook up for lunch or dinner. Their culinary skills are impressive; everyone who tries the food comes away praising it.

In line with its eco-friendly ethos, the market bans disposable cutlery, so everyone must bring their own bowls and chopsticks. With no spare tables available, my companions and I ended up holding our bowls while eating, perching or standing as we went. This shared mealtime seemed to knit us closer together, making my first visit to the market’s dining area feel wonderfully relaxed.

A fine drizzle fell on both evenings at the market, prompting everyone to hunker down under their stall canopies. Yet that light rain seemed to draw people closer together. With the temperature dropping, we set up small stoves and roasted potatoes, Wogan mandarins, bread, and sweet potatoes.

More valuable than the warm, comforting food was the conversation. Gathering around the stoves to share updates, exchange ideas, and discuss ecological farming, I, as a newcomer, was deeply moved by the genuine sincerity among these farmers. It was also the fastest way to absorb information: in just two days, I gained a solid overview of the farming community, their produce, and the diverse ecological agriculture models thriving across Guangxi.

The only downside came when packing up in the evening. The rain intensified, leaving us all completely drenched!

Later, we also took part in the Hecheng Farm Market in our hometown of Guigang (affectionately known as Lotus City).

The Hecheng Farm Market held its inaugural event on 1 April 2023, spanning the weekend. Every stall was filled on opening day, and a local Guigang television station even came to cover it. The market was spearheaded by President Huang of the local Agricultural Association, with Yan Ping playing a pivotal role behind the scenes. Whenever she is on the farm, she makes sure to register for every market event.

A defining feature of the Guigang Hecheng Farm Market is its weekly Saturday-and-Sunday schedule. Furthermore, its offerings aren’t limited to ecological produce; they also include local specialty crops. Compared to the Nanning farm market, both the products and the producers here are noticeably more diverse.

Setting aside the question of whether produce is certified as ecological, I believe that all farmers working directly on the land face significant hardships. Most are caught in a struggle for survival, often squeezed and exploited at various stages of the supply chain. As a platform, the Hecheng Farm Market can help broaden their sales channels.

Yet the challenges are equally apparent: the frequent schedule has gradually dampened participation among most stallholders, and footfall remains low. Thankfully, President Huang and the lead stallholders are well aware of these issues. Fortunately, they actively communicate and work together to find solutions, so it’s worth taking a longer view and looking forward to how the Hecheng Farm Market will evolve.

V. Dining at Xishanxia

Let’s turn our attention back to the food. During our stay at our host’s home, we briefly enjoyed our fill of loquats and lychees. The loquats were full of tiny white larvae, and the tree drew in a host of birds and insects. Perhaps the fruit was simply too delicious, for we found ourselves having to compete with all sorts of creatures just to secure a bite.

Not far from this popular tree stood another beautifully grown loquat tree. Its fruit was visually appealing and evenly coloured, largely untouched by insects or birds. However, these loquats were disappointingly watery and bland, with a poor texture. Growing side by side in the same patch, the two trees yielded vastly different results simply due to their differing varieties.

When the lychees were just coming into season, my sister-in-law invited us over to pick them. The tree didn’t look like it carried a heavy crop, and each time we went up, I expected it to be our last harvest. To my surprise, it withstood pick after pick. Lychees are a curious fruit: eat a few and you’ll feel a rise in internal heat, but feast on them and you’ll come away perfectly fine.

For the most part, I grew weary of the wild greens we foraged on the hilltop—things like wild radish, beggar’s ticks, and broomgrass. Whenever my turn came to cook, I’d ask my sister-in-law for a hand, politely requesting any surplus vegetables her family had eaten their fill of. That way, we’d have some water spinach or Chinese chives on the menu.

Baicaoyuan does grow some Chinese chives (though only in small quantities) and water spinach (recently planted and not ready for picking yet), along with sweet potato leaves (a bit tough, but edible). Still, wild radish remained our most frequent side. I half-joked that if we kept eating it for much longer, I’d be brimming with an extraordinary amount of internal cold.

VI. Learning: What Exactly Is Ecological Agriculture?

During this brief internship, I’ve learned more about the finer details of ecological agriculture, but I’ve also picked up a few new doubts. The first is the concept of “letting nature take its course”.

Yan Ping often says: we don’t need to step in with extra interventions; sometimes, meddling just does more harm than good. If you’re unsure whether an action will actually benefit the fruit trees, the rule is simple: don’t do it! Under this approach, ecological farming certainly feels more practical.

I see it as the principle of “the right crop for the right place”: planting suitable crops according to the local climate and soil. But subsequent field management varies from farm to farm, and from one grower to another. At Baicaoyuan, you simply plant, fertilise, maintain ground cover, water during dry spells, and otherwise avoid over-interfering with plant growth. Still, I worry that this hands-off approach could easily lead to a complete crop failure.

Yan Ping also likes to say, “What a body needs, it attracts.” I interpret this to mean that, taking a fruit tree for example, if it requires certain nutrients, it will release signals to draw in the plants or animals that can supply them, allowing the tree to balance itself. The idea makes sense, but how do we actually tell whether what’s being attracted is genuinely what’s needed?

Back to the fleas: what exactly is my body meant to get from them? Do I just have to grit my teeth and endure the bites? At least humans can move away. If a tree happens to attract creatures that bother it, it can’t run. It’s left to secrete deterrent substances only after it’s already been nibbled or pecked. How pitiful! That’s another point I’m still struggling to grasp.

Second, increasing biodiversity to strengthen resilience against pests and diseases.

The gravest risk of large-scale monoculture is that the slightest shift in conditions or a pest outbreak can wipe out the entire harvest and cost you everything. We often describe ecological farming as resilient, and I believe this is inextricably linked to fostering biodiversity. When different species reach a dynamic equilibrium, large-scale failures are nearly impossible, short of extreme weather events.

Third, managing vegetation cover.

At Baicaoyuan, the most abundant species are bidens, thatch grass, and creeping knotweed, which can grow so aggressively they entwine entire mandarin trees, severely limiting or even eliminating the canopy’s photosynthetic area. This highlights the intense competitive exclusion between plant species. Many ecological farmers rightly stress the importance of retaining grasses; ground cover undoubtedly helps prevent soil erosion and retain moisture. Nevertheless, to guarantee normal crop development, it is essential to carefully gauge the right amount of vegetation cover.

Fourth, refraining from the use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides.

It is often difficult to gauge the correct application rate for chemical fertilisers, so usage in conventional farming tends to be excessive. Crops cannot fully absorb the surplus, which then washes away during rainfall, leading to eutrophication in water bodies. Deprived of their natural role and habitat, soil microorganisms decline, ultimately resulting in soil compaction.

Pesticides and herbicides alike contaminate the soil. Ongoing exposure can drive certain species to extinction, while chemical residues gradually accumulate in the human body. Building up over time, they can give rise to various health complications as we age and our natural defences weaken.

Given that precise dosing of synthetic inputs is never guaranteed, I believe choosing biological and physical pest management over chemical interventions is a far kinder approach—both to the environment and to ourselves.

VII. Journey: New Skills Acquired, Back on the Road

As the only female farmer among the mentors for this internship programme, Yan Ping displayed many admirable qualities: courage, perseverance, a free-spirited nature, strong independence, and clear vision. During our time together, I learned a great deal despite my formal academic background in agriculture. I gained hands-on experience in a range of practical and lifestyle skills, from manual rice transplanting, composting, and fruit picking, to visiting rural markets, setting up a WeChat mini-store, processing orders, cooking over a wood fire, and stir-frying. I also had the opportunity to connect with numerous ecological farms across Guangxi… This journey was truly worthwhile.

As the internship draws to a close, I feel incredibly fortunate to have taken part in Foodthink’s Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme. My time at Xingfu Guo Baicao Yuan has served as a valuable first step in my journey into ecological farming.

Throughout the internship, we visited numerous ecological farms across Guangxi and Guangdong, discovering significant differences in their cultivation and management approaches. This diversity in practice has both highlighted the multifaceted nature of ecological farming and deepened my curiosity about the field.

I also had the pleasure of meeting many outstanding pioneers in the field, gaining not only knowledge but also lasting friendships. The phrase often echoes in my mind: everything happens for the best.

After these three months, I am even more eager to explore how different roles across the ecological agriculture supply chain view the industry. Looking ahead, I hope to continue deepening my work in this field in whatever way I can.

Wishing us both a future full of promise!

Foodthink Author | Hezi

Undergraduate major in Agricultural Resources and Environment. Passionate about studying agriculture and exploring its possibilities! I look forward to bridging theory and practice in the years ahead.

About the Ecological Farm Internship Programme

Unless otherwise stated, all images in this article were taken by the author.

Editor: Tianle