Stop the Rat Race, Let Kids Run Wild on a Farm | Food Talk Vol. 17

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In Europe and Japan, there is a long tradition of educating children through nature and agriculture. Every year, primary school pupils are taken by their schools into the fields to learn how to sow seeds, tend crops, and prepare food. From the classroom to the great outdoors, and from spring planting to autumn harvest, this movement has now reached China. The “Birds and Singing Insects” Farm, located in Miyun, Beijing, is just one such farm dedicated to nature and food education.

In this episode, we are joined by Yi Fang from the “Birds and Singing Insects” Farm and Xiao Yunsheng from the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market. Together with our host, Xiao Jing, these three mothers living in Beijing all work in fields connected to nature and agriculture. Their conversation not only shares delightful anecdotes about their own children’s experiences in the natural world, but also uncovers the unique value farms hold for young people:

In today’s increasingly urbanised and industrialised world, “nature deficit disorder” is becoming all too common. Farms can serve as a vital gateway back to the natural world;

Food carries hidden stories of production far beyond the city. Experiencing how food is grown and made up close on a farm fosters a deeper understanding of our place within society;

Most importantly, what we learn from books must be connected to the real world; only then can we move beyond abstraction and develop a grounded sense of reality. The farm is an ideal space to uncover these authentic connections—using the abundance of nature to offset the narrowness of desk-bound study, tempering the craving for instant gratification with the slow, patient rhythm of the harvest cycle, and easing the anxiety of relentless competition with the gentle uncertainty of depending on nature’s whims.

Progress and personal growth are never confined to simply pushing children too hard. Listen in to hear how our guests share their perspectives.

EPISODE GUESTS

Yi Fang

Co-founded the Birds and Singing Insects Farm with Jinpoluo Village in Miyun in 2018. Before turning her hand to farming, she spent over a decade working as an agricultural project officer for international organisations, travelling the world.

 

 

 

 

Xiao Yunsheng

A former journalist and part-time farmer, she has been selling produce at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market for ten years.

 

 

 

 

EPISODE HOST

Xiao Jing

A newcomer to food and farming education currently studying food systems and biodiversity, and mother to two young children. After being an adult for quite some time, she was oddly struck to discover that no matter where they go, her children’s favourite activities remain playing in the sand and crunching leaves.

 

 

 

A few women brought this ‘biggest little farm’ from the drawing board to reality.

All living things on the farm, from birds to chirping insects.

When they look back on their childhood, may they remember days spent bouncing on the trampoline all day, and the glow of a beautiful sunset.

Young faces in the village: P Cheng, a Peking University law graduate turned baker, has come to the farm to bake bread, while young people who grew up locally have returned to work.

Now in its twelfth year, the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market strives for “vegetables that taste like vegetables, meat that tastes like meat, and shopping that carries a genuine human touch.”

Timeline

01:34 Often described as the Miyun equivalent of Beijing’s “Big Little Farm”, “飞鸟与鸣虫” Farm’s founder Yifang is not a young person who returned to his rural roots. So why did he throw himself into “new rural development”, making Miyun his second home?

06:59 Having come full circle, the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market marks 12 years: produce that tastes like produce, meat that tastes like meat, and the simple pleasure of buying groceries with a human touch.

09:44 Are children naturally drawn to the outdoors? We talk about the kids who visit the market with their parents, those who spend 12 hours playing on a farm, those whose childhoods were spent on European farms, and those who conquered their fear of bugs while staying in a Mongolian yurt on the steppe.

17:16 Humans spent millions of years evolving in the wild; a little over a century of industrialisation is hardly enough to rewrite our genes.

20:20 Dutch documentary *The Garden School*: In Europe, Japan and elsewhere, nature education is a compulsory subject for primary and secondary pupils. Is this to teach every child how to farm, turning them into high-tech agriculturalists?

30:55 Children visiting the farmers’ market are not accustomed to food scarcity. Rather than deliberately delaying gratification or ticking off a 100-day challenge, why not try planting a seed, or simply wait for a peach to ripen naturally over the summer?

38:12 p橙, baker at “飞鸟与鸣虫” Farm: Graduated from Peking University Law School. What’s it actually like to bake bread on a farm?

41:31 What farming life teaches children: The old adage “living at the mercy of the weather” essentially means embracing uncertainty wholeheartedly—a quality sorely missing in modern education’s relentless pursuit of stability and calculated odds.

44:46 Rediscovering the land’s biodiversity on an ecological farm.

50:31 Young people are heading back to the countryside: Without a two-hour daily commute, it’s possible to find real fulfilment in work right in your hometown.

54:41 Every small choice a consumer makes shapes the future of society. Every egg you buy carries weight.

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Podcast Production Team

Planning & Production: Xiaojing

 Podcast Cover: Wanlin

Music: Banong

Editor: Wang Hao

Contact: xiaojing@foodthink.cn

Published by Foodthink