Old Farmers Don’t Buy In, Consumers Just “Watch the Spectacle”: An Ecological Farm’s Dilemma
Foodthink Says
I. The Local Aunties and Uncles Who Grow Organic Vegetables Don’t Buy into Organic Agriculture
Yet the aunties and uncles who work at the farm and actually tend the organic vegetables seem largely unmoved by all this – not particularly taken, anyway, with the methods and techniques behind “organic and ecological” growing. Whenever a pest or disease outbreak strikes, they can’t help remarking, half in complaint and half in advice: “If you don’t spray pesticides, the vegetables will be eaten up.”
From bok choy to yellow peaches to maize, this scene played out again and again over the eight months of my internship. In private conversations, although they watch the plants grow day by day, they remain firmly unconvinced by this way of growing.
I was curious, and a little bewildered. Letian is a membership-based farm that leases out plots of 32–64 m² at 3,000–5,000 yuan a year. The entire year’s harvest from each plot belongs to the member, and the farm handles all the work except the picking. Members often leave the farm with armfuls of produce, and among them are consumers who genuinely share organic ideals. It is rare to hear them express any dissatisfaction with the vegetables. This stands in stark contrast to the views of the aunties and uncles.
Thanks to a smattering of linguistic training, in this environment saturated with dialect I can now understand more and more of their conversations. And thanks to the chances I have had to share meals in their homes, I have seen the vegetables they grow for themselves and used the opportunity to talk about farming. Because of China’s land-transfer policies, the amount of land each household can manage on its own is quite limited, and they genuinely do not have the energy to tend additional plots after their shifts at the farm. So yields are modest, guided largely by the principle of self-sufficiency – they grow food mainly for their own family. Most tellingly, the crops in the farmers’ own plots look more vigorous and well-formed, and the contrast with the farm’s produce is striking.
Some crops call for pesticides out of necessity – autumn maize, for instance. Locally, maize is grown in two seasons each year, and autumn pest damage is severe. Local farmers must spray to guarantee themselves maize to eat through the autumn; that is simply a matter of practical life.
I do not know the exact types of pesticide in use, nor can I make out the names of the particular products she chooses, but I can say with certainty that Letian Bay Farm would never deal with pests this way. Unsurprisingly, the autumn maize at Letian is a sorry sight. Those who embrace organic ideals do not shun produce that has been nibbled by bugs, but the maize left fit for human consumption is already in short supply.
By the time the maize is ready to harvest, some members cannot make the trip to the farm and ask us to pick and post parcels for them. One day I scoured every communal maize plot on the farm and barely found twenty cobs that looked presentable enough. But without exception, each one concealed a few cream-coloured larvae. One of the aunties taught me a trick: soak the cobs in water and all the bugs will wriggle out. In the process, I conquered my fear of insects.
I don’t know whether other organic farms have better production and management techniques for growing healthy maize in autumn. Of course, we could simply choose not to grow it – the way we don’t grow baby bok choy in summer.
Year after year, watching these unsprayed maize plants fall prey to pests – no wonder the local farmers are sceptical of organic agriculture. But for some, this is simply the price of being “organic”, and “the bugs get half, I get half” is part of the philosophy too.
II. A Farm That Doesn’t Live on Selling Vegetables
Letian is located in Fengxian, on the outskirts of Shanghai, just over an hour’s drive from the city centre. Its members roughly fall into three groups: urban organic consumers who care about food safety and quality; grown-ups who miss the land; and families who want their children to experience nature. In response, the farm offers harvestable plots, organic vegetables, weekend activities for children, spaces for adults to socialise or unwind, and more. Among the farm’s many functions, agriculture and farm produce account for only a small fraction of what it provides.
Indeed, although the farm does sell vegetables at 15 yuan per jin (500 g), this is rarely the choice most visitors make – nor does the farm intend to rely on vegetable sales as its main source of revenue. On many occasions, the farm is quite happy to give a few jin of vegetables as a parting gift to every visitor who comes for an event.
Since the farm can neither live on selling organic vegetables nor expects to, and since it must provide so many services to its customers, allocating labour in a way that differs from traditional agriculture becomes a complex challenge. The previous cohort of interns wrote about working conditions on the farm, “A carpenter who can’t grow crops isn’t a proper electrician”, a title that partly captures the challenges the farm must face.
And so, returning to the question of crop cultivation, Letian’s answer is this: what the farm offers is not high-yield, good-looking produce. More often than not, farm produce has to serve as part of the farm’s decoration – a scenic sight, a display piece that lives up to the organic label, there to be seen. Together with the wooden fences enclosing each vegetable plot, the unused enzyme compost bins, the vermicomposting towers stuffed with plastic litter discarded by members, and the children’s play equipment, all of it – along with regular nature-education activities – creates a multi-functional “ecological agriculture theme park”. This may well be the farm’s compromise with the market, the countryside’s accommodation of the city, and the helplessness that comes with limited manpower.
III. If the Farm Doesn’t Live on Selling Vegetables, What Does It Sell?
By the later stretch of my internship I had become something of a half-layperson myself – someone who didn’t grow up in the countryside, who had picked up agricultural knowledge in scraps through hands-on work and hearsay. Yet when members raised “agriculture” questions, I could often discourse with some ease. After all, they were rarely more complex than the basics: “How’s the weather been lately?” “What pests or diseases have you had?” “When can the vegetables be picked?” “How do I cook them when I take them home?” New members were the same, and so were those who had been renting plots for a year or two.
Perhaps members can sustain a “sense of novelty” through the turning of the seasons as different produce comes from the land – but over a longer stretch of time, will they turn their attention more deeply to the soil and to farming? If they don’t, and as the thrill of produce from “their own plot” gradually fades, will they still choose a plot an hour’s drive from the city centre after a year or two? I don’t know.
Of course, Letian Bay Farm is not set in stone, and it has been trying all along to keep generating a “sense of novelty” for its members. Continually updated facilities and a steady stream of new events all try to tell members the same thing – the farm is alive with energy, and every visit holds something new. For most of my time at the farm, this was the work I was responsible for: mending and upgrading facilities, setting up event spaces, writing posts for the farm’s WeChat account, teaching children, and so on.
IV. See You Out There
Unless otherwise stated, all images are provided by the author.
Editor: Tianle