In Guangxi, the Foodie Heartland, What’s Kept This Farmers’ Market Thriving for 11 Years?

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Foodthink Says

How many people can dedicate themselves to a single cause for a decade? The Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market certainly can. Since its inaugural market day in 2013, it has now entered its eleventh year in 2024. Taking place every two months, the market draws dozens of stallholders on each occasion, selling locally sourced Guangxi produce cultivated using ecological methods. The vast majority are smallholder eco-farmers, agricultural cooperatives, and local artisans. Alongside the stalls, the market hosts a variety of hands-on activities.

But who is the community of people sustaining this small enterprise? At the end of April this year, Foodthink colleagues Qi Boshu and Zhou Xuan spent two and a half days immersed in the Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market annual gathering. There, they met this remarkable group of fellow growers and volunteers—a community of people who cherish life and hold a deep respect for the natural world. This piece documents their time there.

Between 27 and 29 December, the Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market will also host its major year-end event, Nawu Lifestyle Festival. We warmly invite partners across Guangxi to join us.

● Come to the market! Market-goers chatting at the farmers’ market.

“Please bring your own crockery and cutlery, and tents if you can. Below is the sign-up for the potluck…”

In April this year, a group announcement like this appeared in the chat for the Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market. It was previewing a special annual gathering—more like a get-together among friends, where everyone brings what they can.

But as two unexpected guests travelling all the way from Beijing, we couldn’t manage to lug tents and fresh produce along. We had to rely on the market’s volunteers to sort out our meals, shelter, and transport. Fortunately, we soon felt at home among this group. Volunteer Weiwei drove down to collect us, and while we were still carefully squeezing into the car, we found the interior already brimming with supplies and warmth.

Heading east out of the city, the urban skyline gave way to slender, straight fast-growing eucalyptus trees. An hour later, as the view outside transformed into sweeping fields of maize, chillies, paddy rice and jasmine, we reached the venue for our gathering: Zhongtuan Village Ecological Farm in Xiaoqi Town, Hengzhou City. Over the next two and a half days, we were privileged to meet a community of like-minded people united by a shared mission and values, and to witness their uncertainty and perseverance in the face of external challenges.

I. A Self-Sufficient Annual Gathering

The market’s annual gathering embodies simplicity and warmth in every detail. With no dedicated accommodation, attendees bring their own tents and pitch camp directly on the farm. In the absence of a meeting room, the cultural centre’s tent doubles as a discussion space; a few sheets of hand-painted red paper with black brush calligraphy added, and it is instantly alive with the convivial buzz of a proper meeting. There is no formal catering either. Local growers and volunteers arrive with homegrown, sustainably farmed produce, and alongside us visiting delegates, we split into working groups to manage all meals for the three days.

● Everyone was divided into groups to handle the cooking, with the author joining the kitchen team on the right.

Farmers, volunteers, and consumers who regularly visit the market are collectively known as ‘market friends’. We only found out later that this is how they usually eat on market days: each family contributes a few ingredients to a shared pot, and everyone dines together across the stalls.

Although the community gathers regularly, this special annual celebration marking a decade is unlike any ordinary meeting. The farm naturally offers the perfect setting for ceremony: gathering beneath the banyan tree to quietly absorb nature’s energy and rediscover a sense of love and empathy for all living things; a pre-meal ritual where everyone holds their bowls and chopsticks, murmuring thanks for nature’s bounty and the present moment—perhaps a touch unpolished, but a rare and precious chance for adults to openly voice their affection and gratitude; ice-breaking team building that puts permaculture lessons into practice through building banana circles; and evening conversations where children and fireflies occasionally wander in, accompanied by the chorus of insects, barking dogs, and a gentle evening breeze, fulfilling every romantic notion of rural life.

● The pre-meal ritual: openly voicing love and gratitude.
● Working together to build banana circles, giving those who have just completed permaculture training a chance to put their learning into practice.
Beyond the events themselves, this community championing ‘sustainable living’ focuses firmly on practical action. Organic waste is composted, and market members bring black soldier flies to provide hands-on guidance on handling kitchen scraps. Committed to zero-waste practices, single-use items are almost entirely absent from the annual gathering.

‘Unforced’, ‘non-judgemental’, ‘responsive to the present’… At the farm market’s annual gathering, there are no mere onlookers. Everything is driven by members’ proactive engagement and mutual understanding, forging connections through not only shared market endeavours but also a shared way of life.

II. A modest but deeply moving spark

With clear skies overhead, leaves are swept from beneath the banyan tree, tents are pitched, and picnic mats are spread out, as members take their time to share their individual ‘paths in ecological farming’.

Like ecological farmers across the country, those at the market come from vastly different backgrounds. There are traditional growers whose families have cultivated the land for generations, university graduates returning home to launch ventures, and new-generation farmers who have come back from overseas. The group also includes artists engaged in creative pursuits and professionals from a wide range of industries. While the circumstances that drew each person to ecological agriculture vary, they all share a foundational commitment to ‘revering nature and simply doing good’. Their life choices may be steeped in idealism, yet when it comes to running a farm, they remain grounded, diligent, and steady in their progress.

● Beneath the banyan tree, they ate, chatted and shared stories. When daylight conversations ran on longer than intended, they simply stayed up late by lamplight to carry on.
Farming holds the romantic allure of retreating to the hills and woods, yet it demands confronting unyielding realities. Squeezed between commodity markets and industrialised agriculture, even conventional smallholders struggle to make ends meet. The pressures of ecological farming are all the more intense. In rural communities, fellow farmers often find themselves a minority and outsiders, constantly shouldering stress, anxiety and self-doubt alone. Individual efforts feel so slight—a lone spark, how could it ever ignite the prairie? It is vital to huddle together for warmth within the farming market’s extended family. It is only at the annual gathering of like-minded peers that such hardships and bitterness are finally eased.

III. What to Do When You’re Short of Hands and Cash

As the market marks its tenth year, how does it reflect on the journey so far? Core volunteers took stock of its developments over the past few years.

Meng Fang, the 2023 convenor, provided a comprehensive overview spanning stallholder participation, the development of new market products, and efforts to broaden the consumer base. While the market continues to rely heavily on volunteers, sparing it from substantial payroll costs, expenses remain for market days, visits by farming partners, volunteer exchanges, and materials. After deducting annual fees and the portion of revenue retained from each market day, a future funding shortfall becomes all too foreseeable, especially in the absence of external sponsorship.

To break even, the market has been forced to budget meticulously and chart a course forward. Consequently, every expense related to market days and events must be carefully weighed.

With costs mounting, how can revenue be increased? Suggestions ranged from raising stallholders’ annual fees to developing market-branded products and generating income through market-day events… The proposals came thick and fast. Yet, despite the flood of ideas, community members sighed with a familiar helplessness: ‘We’re still short of people and money.’

● Core volunteers joining the discussion at the annual gathering.
The challenges facing the market are, in truth, all too familiar. The volunteer team acknowledges that simply keeping up with daily operations already stretches them thin, leaving little energy or time to tackle these issues. As pragmatic doers, everyone is well aware that every attempt to generate revenue comes with its own set of hurdles, yet “someone always has to take the first steps and experiment.”

In reality, the market has been charting its own path over the past few years. To make each market day more engaging, events such as a zero-waste workshop, a ‘friends’ lounge’, and a children’s education group have been held at every gathering over the past few years. To make each market day more engaging, events such as a zero-waste workshop, a ‘friends’ lounge’, and a children’s education group have been held at every two-month market day since 2022. The richness of content and format has left even regular attendees wonderfully surprised.

At every market day, farmers and volunteers travel from all corners to gather. Upon arrival, they immediately set to work hauling materials and laying out the space. Despite the toil, they embrace it gladly.

The harder the challenges, the brighter the hope. As the meeting drew to a close, having agreed on this year’s KPIs, the community members offered each other words of encouragement: “A group of capable people like us can surely achieve something remarkable.”

IV. A Decade of Mutual Support

Reflections at the annual gathering inevitably address the bigger picture. What is the true value and significance of the market? It is a question that volunteers and stallholders alike often ponder.

Over a relaxed chat after the meal, I learned that stallholders have come and gone over the years, and the community has seen its share of reunions and farewells. From an outsider’s perspective, running a market is no easy feat. The partners have persisted with grit, determined to preserve this window connecting the city and the countryside and showcasing sustainable living. They aim to keep this platform alive—one that links small-scale actions like reducing plastic and composting to seemingly “distant” issues such as climate change and biodiversity—while also holding onto this warm, home-like community.

● An awards ceremony held between making dumplings, with the exchange of gifts and best wishes.

Over a decade of trial and error, the market itself has undergone considerable transformation: from its early days of support by social organisations, to a corporate-style operation, and after hitting a few brick walls, evolving into its current model of collaboration between farming households and volunteers. Under this arrangement, commerce, conversation, and co-creation happen simultaneously, while deep bonds and a sense of gratitude quietly take root among the community.

As the annual gathering wound down, I rode back to the city centre in volunteer Weiwei’s car. I discovered that many volunteers hold full-time jobs, yet in their spare time, they help run the market and organise the annual event, each of them brimming with boundless energy.

Ten years ago, farmers’ markets sprang up in cities across the country. But time has been a great filter, and not every market survived. We asked ourselves: what has truly kept the Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market going all this while? Upon leaving, the answer still seemed somewhat out of focus. Perhaps it is “idealism”, yet such words often ring clichéd and abstract. Maybe, when the sky is clear, one’s feet are planted on the ground, and familiar faces are gathered nearby, courage naturally flows without end. By supporting one another, market friends use a spark to light the path ahead for each other.

● A group photo of community members attending the annual gathering.

Foodthink Author

Qí Boshu

Foodthink Programme Officer. An agriculture student rediscovering the land.

 

 

 

 

About the Nanning Urban Rural Market

Founded in 2013 by organisations and volunteers dedicated to ecological farming and sustainable living, the Nanning Urban Rural Market was established to support local smallholder ecological agriculture through periodic market gatherings. It aims to create a platform for urban and rural communities to exchange ideas on sustainable living, fostering trust among people and harmony with nature.

Photos by: qiqi Zhou Xuan, Core Volunteer at the Nanning Urban Rural Market

Editor: Wang Hao

Published by Foodthink