Three Months Farming, My Ecological Farm Dream Hit Pause
I. “Hands” Are Still the Primary “Labour Tool”
The question “Are you tired?” kept popping up in conversations between the workers, the aunties, and us interns. “Tired” is how most people perceive agricultural labour. In a daily routine so heavily dependent on one’s hands, I looked at the creases in my fingers—unbroken for twenty-seven years—and they seemed to be quietly protesting: civilisation has been farming for thousands of years, so why hasn’t the toll on the body come down at all? Office workers’ occupational ailments attract wide attention. But what about those of farmers? Have mainstream agricultural technology policies leaned too heavily towards supporting large-scale production systems? How many technologies actually benefit small-scale producers?
While Letian Haiwan Farm is not a “smallholder” in the traditional sense, the cultivation of its roughly 20 mu of arable land is supported almost entirely by four farmhands over the age of seventy. These four workers, past retirement age, hold the core know-how for farming this patch of earth. If the day ever comes when all of them retire, how will those of us unable to shoulder the responsibility manage to feed ourselves?
II. Sharing the Joy of Harvest
The vegetables, fruits, and melons that grow from this earth are simply too beautiful. I wanted to put on an exhibition, showing everyone the vitality in them. When making deliveries, I always couldn’t help picking a little extra, wanting the recipients to feel the joy of harvest too.
Only after packing vegetable boxes myself did I understand why post-harvest management and transport can become a major field of research. It is not only about ensuring product quality; the process also carries our hope of passing on the joy of the harvest to the consumer, undimmed. Even sorting garlic chives—the thing I disliked most when I arrived—became something I no longer minded much. Perhaps it was simply practice making perfect.
III. Animals and Plants on the Farm
Farm work looks simple, yet behind every task lies specialised skill and knowledge. In the fields, on the surface we are pinching the tips of edamame seedlings, pruning and fruit-thinning the maize, tomatoes, and peaches—but what reaction does each of our actions trigger inside the plant? Is it satisfied with our “help”? What would it look like if it were allowed to grow according to its own rhythms? Clumsy and unsure of how to tend the crops when I first arrived, I was never spared Master Wang’s disapproval—he was our “foreman”.
The farm’s animals have personalities of their own, and sometimes they fall ill in ways we do not recognise, even facing moments that threaten their lives. In early March, the “new human parents” attempted to hatch ducklings in a warming box. After turning the eggs, they forgot to close the lid; the temperature dropped, and of the twenty duck eggs placed inside, only half hatched.
Then, for reasons unknown, ducklings nearly a month old began losing their footing one after another, with growing discharge from their eyes and noses. Lacking veterinary expertise, the human parents improvised desperately, scouring the internet until, after much research, they arrived at a preliminary diagnosis of polyserositis. Though we meticulously dosed each chick by weight—just fractions of a gram per feeding—only the three hardiest survived. On 5 July, the duck mother and father had yet to see their surviving children before a stray dog burst in and killed them all.
The plants on the farm change with time too, and weeding has stopped being nothing but a chore—it has become my way of making first-hand observations.
When I arrived in early April, there were many plants I had never seen in Guangdong: sun spurge growing into perfect geometric shapes; cleavers, slender as a thread yet able to cling to other plants with a coat of tiny hooked hairs; Philadelphia fleabane blanketing the hillside in white blossom like a symbol of spring; the purple-flowered sow-thistle-leaved crepidiastrum and field thistle, among others.
At the time I was still reflecting on how the farm, unlike Guangdong, was spared the rampant alligator weed. By May, I realised it had simply been too cold earlier to wake them. The weeds and crops on this farm follow their own calendar; miss the window, and you will not see them again until next year. Perhaps it is precisely that seasonality that stirs a little regret and anticipation in one’s heart.
IV. The Ideals and Realities of Ecological Farming
A glimpse through the lens of fertiliser reveals the practical constraints on making the farm self-sustaining: cultivated area, manpower, funding, infrastructure, workflow design, climate, and fertiliser quality, among others. A farming system that might otherwise be far more self-sufficient appears trapped—by these practical realities and by external constraints such as land-use classification and the tangle of permits and approvals. In many respects the farm still falls short of the ideals laid out in ecological farming, organic farming, and permaculture theory, yet under present conditions, this may well be the optimal solution for keeping the farm running.
On the Community-Supported Agriculture side, practical challenges abound. In the ideal CSA model, members and producers share the risks of farming together. Yet after three months of observation, I found that some members were unfamiliar with the CSA philosophy. One complained to us that the crops in her plot had turned out worse than those in the surrounding plots. As service providers, we ought to strive to deliver quality produce to our members, yet members generally prefer to share only in the gains, unwilling to absorb yield losses caused by external factors.
Moreover, the vision of shortening the food supply chain through an ecological farm that connects directly with consumers has not been fully realised. Geographically, the farm sits in Shanghai’s Fengxian District—so far out that even Shanghai locals will not acknowledge it as a suburb of the city. Many nearby residents have their own plots of land and have little need for a farm-to-table service. Of the fifty-odd members who rent plots, let alone regular pickers, there are very few who even take scheduled deliveries. Much good produce rots in the ground before members ever come to claim it, never reaching the table.
Sometimes I wonder: does “eating seasonally, eating locally” actually meet my dietary needs? By the end of July, the farm yielded roughly twenty varieties of fruit and vegetables, whereas the supermarket offered over thirty organic choices, and countless more non-organic ones. Compared with a supermarket, the farm currently lacks mushrooms, condiments are in short supply, the newly sown coriander did terribly through the plum-rain season, and after the heatwave there was little leafy green left worth eating.
After half a month of racking my brains to make different meals from the same handful of ingredients, I realised that relying on a single farm’s output might sustain life, but it would not satisfy the deeper nourishment food gives me. I have to admit: for consumers who relish variety, the chance to enjoy produce from every corner of the world is a genuine pleasure. Turned around, that pleasure may also indirectly help preserve the local food traditions of some distant place.
Finally, a farm like Letian Haiwan, oriented primarily towards urban visitors’ leisure and experience, must cater to clients’ visual expectations as well. To keep the farm from looking too “wild,” we tidy up the lawns and the lush roadside vegetation before every event. Each time I see the bare patches of ground peeking through after we have trimmed back, I feel a pang of loss—but personal preference must yield when the louder voice belongs to the client.
V. Memories Strung Together by Meals
To close, using food as the thread that ties everything together, I want to say: the post-departure withdrawal symptoms perhaps it is missing the grand ‘pies’ Boss Yuan kept “drawing”, Xiao Ling’s hometown speciality of mustard chicken, Xiao Lu’s waterfall bread, Xiao Liu’s stir-fried tomato and egg, the twenty-five crayfish Xiao Tong hauled out over two nights of fishing, Master Wang’s poached chicken—a dish he only reveals when properly coaxed—Member Aunt Gu’s Indian aster and pork zongzi, Aunt Hua’s habit of adding a pinch of chilli powder to vegetable dishes for a kick, and the farm’s seasonal specials: cucumber jelly, sautéed potato with aubergine and pepper, strawberry jam, chilled watermelon, tomatoes sprinkled with white sugar… and the farm’s living “kitchen waste processors”, the dogs—Princess Potato and the unexpectedly adorable Xiao Bao. Please take good care of them for the next batch of interns, too.
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