Hu Ge and Liu Tao visit the farm – have the melons sold yet?
In May, I quit my job and left Beijing for a while, heading to the Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, where I lived for two months. To my surprise, I spent every single day of my first month there drinking. Two-thirds of the beer in the farm’s coffee house was bought by volunteers; when the beer ran out, we would dig out the plum wine the farm had brewed the previous year and drink together late into the night.
It was mostly born out of frustration.
“Why did you come here?” Countless people asked me this over those two months, and I asked myself many times too. My daily life—rough and chaotic—seemed utterly absurd. I spent my days collecting rubbish, scrubbing toilets, cooking rice, and making coffee for guests. This was a far cry from my initial expectations of learning about agriculture in Alxa.
Eventually, I settled on a standard reply: “I’m here to rough it.”
Before resigning, I had spent seven years as a business journalist. My tenure coincided with the boom of the internet reshaping the fresh produce industry. I wrote a vast amount of industry news related to agriculture and frequently travelled to the countryside on assignment, encountering fascinating origins and produce: Fuyuan and cranberries, Yongquan and honey tangerines, Dujiangyan and kiwis…
But over time, these interviews—organised by internet giants and lasting no more than three days—always fell into a narrow logic of the distribution chain. Combined with the repeated lockdowns and shrinking social radius throughout 2022, I began to re-evaluate my work. There were so many contradictions that I felt a desperate need to escape this sense of stagnation.
At the start of 2023, I signed up for the Foodthink Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme. Firstly, I hoped to spend more time than a typical interview cycle would allow to experience the actual operation of an ecological farm and learn some basic agricultural knowledge; secondly, I wanted to take the opportunity to visit the Inner Mongolian plateau, a vast region I had always romanticised.
And so, Alxa Zhiliangtian became the only choice—it was the only farm in Inner Mongolia on Foodthink’s internship list, located in Bayanhot Town, Alxa Left Banner, about an hour’s drive from the Helan Mountains.
I. The melons are picked, but the buyers are not yet sorted
Before leaving, I browsed some articles on the farm’s WeChat account and listened to podcasts featuring the farm owner, Ma Yanwei. I learned that the concept of “Desert Ecological Honey Melons” was underpinned by Ma’s own story—an ecology Master’s graduate from the Northeast who, driven by a philanthropic spirit, stayed in Alxa to develop water-efficient agriculture.
I wasn’t interested in the idealism; I’ve heard too many such stories over the years, most of which ended in failure. However, this farm had survived for eight years and expanded its cultivated area to 160 mu. Existing data showed it was profitable in terms of produce sales and had developed some brand recognition. I set off with the mindset of studying a success story.
I arrived at Zhiliangtian in July, just as the honey melon sales season was approaching. A few days after arriving, I was brought into a sales meeting. That first session brought me face-to-face with reality and instantly killed my curiosity about the honey melon business.
With the melons nearly ready for harvest, Ma Yanwei had invited a friend who specialised in live-stream e-commerce from town to offer advice on sales. At the start of the meeting, Ma said, “Our goal this year is, first and foremost, to avoid having unsold stock.” Before he could finish, the friend interrupted: “No, no, no. That’s the bare minimum. We can’t just have the bare minimum in mind; we must find a way to make a profit. Look at you—you’ve worked hard all year and been tanned black; that all has a cost.”
Hearing this, I thought to myself: it turns out the “slim profit margins” Ma Yanwei repeatedly mentioned in his podcasts weren’t just a sign of modesty! Sales at the farm were far from the smooth process I had imagined; it was still struggling on the edge of survival.
Throughout the meeting, the friend kept offering suggestions. For example: live-stream more on Douyin; quickly establish contacts with local channels that can handle high-end produce to build a reputation in the local market. Encouraged by this, Ma spent the next few days waking up at 6 am to drag two Gen Z volunteers from Beijing onto Douyin to pre-sell the melons. Unfortunately, a single live stream only attracted around a hundred viewers.
Two weeks later, I was brought into another sales meeting. As I entered the office, the oppressive silence of everyone resting their heads in their hands told me everything—sales were truly difficult! Much of the work planned in the meeting at the start of the month had been shelved because no one executed it; for instance, the daily live streams had largely stopped after the Gen Z volunteers left.
But by then, the honey melons had been harvested as scheduled and were piled up in the fields.
Rejection was inevitable: supermarkets have their own procurement processes. This is especially true for organic fruit; retailers usually agree on purchase volumes and price ranges with farms well before the season begins, rather than scrambling for sources at the last minute. Furthermore, retailers have their own requirements for appearance, weight standards, and pricing, which producers may not be able to meet or accept.
I remembered visiting an organic farm partnered with Hema on the outskirts of Beijing two years ago. In front of the media, the farm owner was arguing with a procurement officer about insect holes in the vegetable leaves. The owner felt Hema’s acceptance standards were too harsh: holes in the leaves were precisely the proof that no pesticides had been used, yet they didn’t meet Hema’s standards and had to be stripped away in large quantities, increasing the farm’s waste. However, the Hema buyer insisted that unattractive vegetables would reduce customers’ desire to buy. Beyond this, to align with Hema’s sales rhythm, the farm had also changed its model from diversified planting to monoculture—a huge compromise made for the sake of sales.
Even with access to channels like Hema, many ecological farms still struggle to survive, let alone a farm like Zhiliangtian, which has no stable sales channels at all.
II. Expensive organic honey melons: how to market them?
While e-commerce allows farms to reach consumers directly, it doesn’t reduce the costs of cultivation and sales; if anything, it drives up marketing and logistics expenses. Especially in the current economic climate, retailers are prioritising value for money. Even Hema, which once championed ‘consumption upgrading’, has shifted entirely towards a discount model this year.
I keep thinking back to a conversation about ‘market positioning’ during a Foodthink online peer-learning session between interns and farm mentors.
A young person planning to return to their village for ecological farming was asking the farm owners in the group about production issues related to yield, only to be interrupted by Da Hei from the Green Me Farm in Xi’an: ‘Don’t get bogged down in the details yet. Production problems can always be solved; you should first consider where your market is.’
‘Agriculture involves a series of complex questions: How do you choose the variety? Will you produce primary agricultural products or processed foods? How do you handle brand marketing? How do you position your market? These are things that need to be figured out in advance; yield is just the foundation. After all, we have to compete in the market. You can rely on your personal network in the early days, but once the farm matures, these are the issues you must address,’ said Da Hei, who has already built his own biscuit processing workshop on the farm and sells them through several stable channels.
Zhi Liang Tian is also in this post-maturity commercialisation phase. A few years ago, Ma Yanwei used his philanthropic story and connections to open up the market for his melons. But as the audience expanded and oversupply hit the melon market in recent years, the business has become increasingly difficult. In 2022, climate issues led to crop loss and unsold stock. To reduce risk this year, the farm proactively cut its melon planting area by nearly half, yet sales still leave everyone feeling disheartened.
The farm grows three types of melon: Jinhongbao, Xizhoumi, and Baiyindi. Although their ripening periods are staggered, they are only sold for a little over a month, meaning their shelf life is relatively short. Retailers can maintain a supply throughout the summer by sourcing melons with different ripening dates from across the country, but a single farm cannot cover the entire summer harvest.
In 2023, due to rising costs such as land rent, the cost per box of melons increased by 10 yuan, bringing the retail price of a single melon (including delivery) to nearly 50 yuan. Every time we sliced open a melon brought back from the fields, I couldn’t help but joke: ‘I can’t afford this melon.’ It is not at a price the mass market can accept. In the local market, non-organic melons sell for just a few cents per catty; the farm’s organic melons have no competitiveness whatsoever in the local wholesale markets.
III. High Logistics and Labour Costs in the Desert
In late July, the volunteers were called together to transport and load melons from the fields. I later realised that this was the only time during my two-month internship that I actually participated in fieldwork.
On 28 July, Typhoon Dusu-ri made landfall in Fujian, and by that evening, the moisture swept up from the Pacific had reached the Helan Mountains. Cumulonimbus clouds piled up on the eastern side of the range, glowing crimson in the sunset. The evening glow was beautiful, and those dense clouds continued to gather east of the Helan Mountains for several days. But Mr Ma said, “You might find the clouds over the mountains romantic these past few days, but I don’t find them romantic at all.”
After the typhoon made landfall, the weather forecast predicted a week of continuous rain in Zuoyi Banner. At this time, the farm’s melons had entered their sales window, and ripe melons are most vulnerable to rain. Precipitation can cause the melons to crack, making them unsaleable. The farm had suffered such losses in 2022. Learning from this, the farm began an emergency harvest on 30 July, picking and packing the melons before the rain arrived to be stacked at the farm.
That batch of melons consisted of pre-orders from farm members. We formed an assembly line under the trees: some folded cardboard boxes, some weighed the fruit, some inflated the air column bags used for cushioning, and others tucked the melons into the bags.
The air column bags popped with a series of sharp cracks; someone remarked that it sounded like firecrackers during the Lunar New Year.
While weighing the fruit, Ma Yanwei smiled and asked, “Guess what I’m thinking when I hear that sound?”
I replied, “How much does it cost every time one of those bags pops?”
Mr Ma told me I was right: “Half a yuan.”
Each box held two melons, requiring at least two air column bags. Even ignoring the wastage of packaging materials, the combined cost of logistics and cushioning for a single box of melons came to nearly 20 yuan.
Melons are not a fruit perfectly suited for e-commerce. Unlike climacteric fruits such as kiwis, which can be picked early and stored in cold storage for long periods, melons lack the high unit value of cherries or blueberries. Every year, by the time the melons reach their peak ripeness and flavour, they are at their least suitable for long-distance transport.
Given these characteristics, selling melons to distant markets while preserving their flavour requires seamless coordination between the farm, the seller, and the logistics provider. Currently, the farm is clearly not prepared for this.
Another exorbitant cost is labour—Alxa is a place where it is incredibly difficult to retain talent.
Throughout July, I could tell that Mr Ma was receiving plenty of ideas from various friends, but once it came to execution, things were either chaotic or simply fizzled out.
Often, I felt that what the farm lacked most was a stable operational team. For instance, we needed full-time staff to handle the expansion and maintenance of sales channels, brand operations, product marketing, and quality control for production… these are year-round activities. But the farm has only five full-time employees, all of whom are stretched thin. The volunteers, who arrive every year like migratory birds, can only provide limited help.
People are the most expensive resource in Alxa. Captain Zhao, who is responsible for production, said, “If you want to get anything done in Alxa, you can’t do it without money.” Wages in the local villages are on par with those in coastal areas. During the peak farming season, field workers earn 200 yuan a day.
In fact, even Mr Ma admitted that if you factor in all costs, including labour and the risk of unsold stock, the farm’s flagship melon product has been losing money for years.
IV. The Daily Grind of the Reluctant Volunteers
Faced with such a long list of chores, many people simply did as they pleased. While I could understand this, I couldn’t stomach the perfunctory way some handled the kitchen. It was particularly infuriating to follow an unreliable pair on the roster; entering the kitchen the next day was enough to drive one mad: the previous day’s food waste was still fermenting in the bin instead of being in the compost pile; pots had been left soaking in the sink without being scrubbed; and leftover food sat on the kitchen counters, attracting flies that were more industrious than the humans after a single night.
Despite having no desire to be a teacher, I found myself managing a study tour group of about 20 people; despite barely knowing how to cook, I had to rack my brains during my shifts to conjure up meals that could satisfy 20 people. The first time I cooked, I WeChated my flatmate in Beijing: “I have to make dinner for 17 people today!” My flatmate replied, “I only have one expectation: that there’s enough, and that it’s cooked through.”
After many such dinners, I would sit outside, facing the distant evening glow, sipping beer and silently processing the absurdity of it all.
Yet, the unexpected absurdity was only one part of it; more often, this place provided me with many unforgettable experiences, otherwise I wouldn’t have written this diligent internship summary. For much of my remaining time at the farm, I took over the coffee house and encountered many unexpected stories. The people and events I met there gradually helped me understand why some people are willing to stay in this desolate land. Tomorrow, I will continue sharing the stories I encountered at the farm.
To date, two recruitment cycles have been completed, supporting over 40 participants in internships lasting from two months to a year across more than 10 ecological farms nationwide. The second cohort will ‘graduate’ at the end of 2023, and open recruitment for the third cohort will begin in January 2024! Stay tuned for more updates on Foodthink’s ‘Ecological Agriculture Internship’ programme!
Edited by: Xiong Yi