How to Find Produce You Can Trust? Two Mums’ Ten Years of Experience | Food Talk Vol. 49
In the first decade of the 21st century, a string of food safety crises prompted a wave of Chinese consumers to seek out better agriculture and better ingredients, and farmers pioneering organic growing began appearing across the country.
This episode’s guest, Cao Xiaohong, was one of them. In 2008, her child’s health issues led her to start searching for safer food. When she began shopping on the organic platform Wotu Workshop, there were no mini-programs for placing orders, no WeChat groups, and courier services were still underdeveloped – she sometimes had to rely on email and cash just to buy something. While the organic movement was taking root in major cities, she was in a small town in Hunan. Step by step, she built a small group-buying circle, reaching out to farmers across the country and encouraging local mums to buy along with her. To this day, she remains active in consumer communities.
The other guest this episode, Xiao Yunsheng of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, also looks back on her journey from consumer to vegetable seller. Over more than a decade of selling at farmers’ markets, she has weathered many changes and challenges, and has learned how to maintain – together with farmer friends from all over the country – a table that can withstand the tests that come with time.
Looking back, it was a group of consumers who understood food, had aspirations for it, and possessed both the passion and the ability to build organisations, who began shifting public perceptions of agriculture and food, bridging the gap between producer and consumer. But as livestreaming and drop-shipping delivery services enter the scene, can we still build the kind of mutual trust those early consumers once did?
Xiaohong also shares the life philosophy that underpins her relationship with food: how to adopt an un-anxious approach to eating? How to choose well at the market? And an enviable vision of the ideal life – following her parents to learn farming first-hand, getting to know food and nature through their own hands… If you also find yourself worrying about what to buy for the family, or simply want to eat with a little more peace of mind, this episode is one worth listening to.
This Episode’s Guests
Cao Xiaohong
Born in Chenzhou, Hunan Province, she grew up in the mountains. Her ancestors are recorded as farmers in the clan genealogy, and it is only in this generation that both siblings settled in the city. An educator by profession, she began buying organic food from Wotu Workshop in 2008 – also partly through raising her own children – and so embarked on a deep journey into the relationship between food, the land, and nature.
Xiao Yunsheng
A former journalist and amateur farmer, she has been selling vegetables at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market for ten years.
This Episode’s Host
Wang Hao
Editor at Foodthink, and a consumer who began exploring ecological food after the pandemic.
Timeline
00:45 First encounters with the organic community: in 2008, with no WeChat, everything was held together by email and trust.
05:56 Why does the girl who “escaped” the countryside still need to rediscover the land in adulthood?
17:01 The rise of the mums’ group: buying veg can forge deep friendships – the group leader charges ahead and the rest follow with eyes shut – eco farmer friends from all over the country hold up the dinner table for a group of mums.
20:46 What Mum and Dad’s vegetable patch taught me: one cob of corn, five worms – can you cope?
23:43 From “die-hard organic” to “go-with-the-flow shopping”: as the children grow, life’s rhythm shifts, and eating becomes less of a “rat race”.
25:24 Going back to local: browsing the wet market is a kind of practice – how to spot the gran’s home-grown local produce?
37:52 In the age of livestreaming and parcel delivery, why has consumer trust not grown stronger than before?
48:42 The dream is to return to life as it was always meant to be: three meals, four seasons, working the land, and truly noticing.
▼ Click to read related articles
Rebuilding the Vanished Nearby: Farming for the Future
Remarkable Chengdu Mums: From Self-Help to Mutual Aid – a Path of Cooperation
From Consumer to Dweller: Japanese Mums’ Path to Community Reform
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Music: Banong
Production: Xiaojing
Editor: Wang Hao
Contact email: xiaojing@foodthink.cn