Leaving a Conservation Organisation to Grow Melons in the Desert: Agriculture Can Protect the Environment Too

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This episode was recorded in the desert of Alxa, Inner Mongolia, with Qihua, who leads research on climate change and smallholder ecological farming at Foodthink, and two guests. At the end of August 2022, the three sat beneath a great tree in an oasis in the Tengger Desert. You may hear the howling wind and sand in the background, birds calling, and every now and then mosquitoes and flies coming over, giving off a faint buzz.

One of the two guests is Ma Yanwei, who holds a master’s degree in ecology from Beijing Normal University and founded the Alxa Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm, hoping to improve the desert environment by growing muskmelons. The other is Tiantian, who left Shanghai after eight years of living and working there to join Foodthink’s Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme and intern at the Zhiliangtian farm.

After eight years of building this venture, how is the ecological farm faring in the desert? And how much can a gap year on a farm change a young person’s life?

This Episode’s Guests

Ma Yanwei

An organic farmer on the edge of the desert. Besides farming, he enjoys reading and long journeys. He hopes to keep his feet planted in the earth while still gazing up at the stars.

 

 

 

 

Lei Tiantian

A devotee of the Slow Food movement, living a sojourner’s life. An occasional workaholic who dreams of becoming a nomad. Weeding in the fields and cooking in the kitchen are her surefire ways of unwinding. She took the pen name “Tianshe Laoweng” (Old Man of the Farmhouse) and dreams of being Su Dongpo’s neighbour.

 

 

 

This Episode’s Host

Qihua

Stepping out of the lukewarm bath of daily life to see something different; coming to the desert and chatting with an ecological farmer who grows melons not to harvest them—what a joy.

 

 

 

 

The Alxa Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm, founded by ecology master’s graduate Ma Yanwei, covers an area of about 1,000 mu (roughly 67 hectares), with 160 mu (around 10.7 hectares) under cultivation. The farm grows millet and a variety of fruits and vegetables, with muskmelons as the main product. Photography: Grandma Magpie
Ma Yanwei, who comes from an ecology background, joined the Alxa SEE Ecological Association in 2005. After leaving in 2015, he settled in Alxa and founded the Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm.
Guest Tiantian (left), host Qihua (centre), and Foodthink editor Ze’en are making a generous plate of pumpkin pancakes at the Zhiliangtian farm, using pumpkins they grew themselves. Fancy a taste of this life? Follow our “Ecological Agriculture Internship” Programme.
After the unusual spells of continuous rain in the summer of 2022, the last batch of melons at the Alxa Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm was never harvested. This is the remaining tail melon, about to be returned to the field.
The wild “sand onion” favoured by the people of Alxa sways gently in the desert, its tiny rose-pink flowers nodding.

Timeline

01:43 Beneath a great tree on the shores of Chagan Lake in the southeastern Tengger Desert of Alxa, Inner Mongolia, we recorded this episode accompanied by the sound of wind and insects.

03:28 Why did Ma Yanwei originally head to the Alxa desert to work, and how did he go about founding the “Alxa Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm” and planting muskmelons?

07:07 Sand onion, a wild desert food beloved by the people of Alxa, has recently started appearing in lamb rolls at hot-pot restaurants. Yet the unseasonal drought of 2022 delayed its growth by as much as two months.

09:42 Muskmelons are the main product of the Zhiliangtian farm. Why did yields drop so sharply in 2022?

17:04 Lei Tiantian, an intern on the Foodthink Lianhe Programme, moved to the desert farm after seven or eight years working in the Shanghai office. From feeling like an exile cast out in ancient times to making a generous plate of pumpkin cakes with her own homegrown pumpkins—how does Tiantian truly feel?

22:00 A soul-searching question for Tiantian: after completing her farm internship, will she really choose a “new farmer” lifestyle in the future?

23:40 Asking Ma Yanwei: over the past few years, what kind of lives has he observed among this generation of new farmers in China? What do new farmers typically chat about?

31:14 Let’s revisit the origins of the “Alxa Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm”. After operating since 2015, is the farm still running at a loss?

34:16 Partnering with Foodthink to recruit interns: why has farm life suddenly become more appealing?

38:22 In practising ecological agriculture, what improvements and efforts has the Zhiliangtian farm made to the desert’s ecological environment?

42:34 “Eating one muskmelon from the Alxa Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm helps improve 1 square metre of desertified land.” Is that a bit of an exaggeration? Can farmland in the desert support rich biodiversity too?

46:55 The Zhiliangtian farm’s three seven-year plans: how can ecological farmers go further? If you’d like to join an experienced farm, learn from seasoned practitioners, lower the cost of trial and error, and pick up the craft of farming more quickly, you’re welcome to apply for Foodthink’s “Ecological Agriculture Internship” Programme. Applications close today!

About the Ecological Farm Internship Programme

Foodthink’s second Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme is now recruiting, and applications close today! In 2022, 18 young people from diverse backgrounds completed the first round of internships, travelling to 12 ecological farms across the country and finishing three months to a year of farm life.

We hope ecological farms can distil their precious experience in farm management, production techniques, sales and promotion, so that young people considering a return to the countryside to pursue ecological agriculture can learn from it. At the same time, interns with diverse backgrounds can contribute their own strengths, injecting fresh energy into the farms while reducing their own future learning and trial-and-error costs if they ever choose to start a farm of their own. If you too dream of returning to the land and working in ecological agriculture, don’t wait—fill in the application form now!

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Podcast Production Team

Planning: Qihua

Production: Xiao Putao

 Podcast cover: Wan Lin

Music: Ba Nong

Editing: Xiao Jing

Contact email: xiaojing@foodthink.cn

 

Published by Foodthink