I Started a Farm in Canada: From Peking University Biology to Smallholder Farmer | Food Talk Vol. 22
In this episode of Food Talk, we welcome an old friend, Sun Shan, who has held positions at several public-interest organisations, including the Shan Shui Conservation Center. She now runs a farm of her own in Canada.
Unlike the idyllic picture of spending every day in harmony with nature that many people imagine, ecological conservation work also has its difficult and frustrating sides, and this left her physically and emotionally drained. What should the ideal life look like?
During visits to farmers in Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere, Sun Shan gradually learned about the concept of “half-farming, half-X” – the idea that one can grow food while still pursuing other interests. So she and her family first rented a small plot of land in Beijing and spent several years as part-time farmers. After moving to Canada, she decided to make agriculture the centre of both her life and her work.
Starting a farm from scratch at forty, Sun Shan was fortunate enough to come across Fair Food Farms, a small-scale ecological farming incubator project in Canada. With its support, she threw herself into the work on the farm, labouring and sharing alongside her fellow community members.
As a smallholder farmer in Canada, growing vegetables is not necessarily profitable, but fermentation, training, consulting, writing and translation make up the “X” in “half-farming, half-X”. The experience of growing food gave her a sense of the joy of cultivation and the wonder of the natural world, and helped her leave behind the helplessness and despair she had felt in her conservation work. How can young people, weighed down by enormous pressure in life, find ways to cope with the setbacks they face so often by connecting with nature? This question is also explored in the episode.
And yet, for Sun Shan’s parents, who still live in China, her daughter’s decision to go farming in Canada is a change that takes time to accept. Sun Shan found that sharing the honest reality of her farming life could forge a special emotional bond with them.
After listening to this episode of Food Talk, perhaps you will find that nature is not so far away after all. Each of us may find our own moment of connection with the natural world – planting a single vegetable, slipping our feet into the soil, letting the skin do the feeling, and rediscovering the healing power we are born with.
This Episode’s Guest
Sun Shan
She currently runs Chi Garden, an ecological farm and fermentation kitchen garden, in Ottawa. Sun Shan graduated from Peking University with a degree in ecology. She founded Peking University’s first nature and environmental conservation club, the Green Life Association, and later obtained a master’s degree in Environment and Public Policy from George Mason University in the United States. She has worked for several years across research institutes, environmental organisations, the sustainability sector and non-profit organisations, and is currently Chair of the Shan Shui Conservation Center.
Articles published by Sun Shan on Foodthink ▼
This Episode’s Hosts
Tian Le
Foodthink editor. Sufferer of Nature Deficit Disorder. Has worked in food and agriculture for over a decade. Though still no picture of physical industry, can at least tell the five grains apart. Admires all who till the field in person and farm with their minds.
Xiao Chao
A Foodthink project officer preparing to leave the role. An enthusiast of balcony gardening. This year levelled up: rented a yard in the suburbs with friends, broke new ground, grew food and made things to eat.
Timeline
00:42 Sun Shan, who graduated from Peking University’s Ecology programme in the Department of Biology and has held roles at several public-interest organisations – how did she make such a complete transformation and set up a farm in Canada?
03:15 As a quintessential city dweller, even though her work at a non-profit was in ecological conservation, Sun Shan experienced the same physical and emotional exhaustion that women in leadership roles often face. She began to hope: in the future, could she not only use her mind and her words, but also her hands and her heart – working directly with the land?
05:24 After visiting farmers in Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere, Sun Shan learned about the concept of “half-farming, half-X” – a way of living in the countryside, growing and eating your own food, while channeling your interests into other work: moving from being purely a consumer to becoming one of the producers.
06:58 Buy a plot of land in Canada, and the land itself is a dream. Sun Shan and her family spent two or three months visiting farms of all kinds across Canada, meeting farmers from every walk of life, and gradually felt ready to take up farming.
14:20 Starting a farm from scratch at forty, she was fortunate enough to encounter Fair Food Farms, a small-scale ecological farming incubator project in Canada: “We won’t make your path to farming any easier, but at least we can keep each other company.”
17:44 If the land is unhealthy, so is society: preserving agricultural diversity, staying small-scale
22:23 A farm life of rising with the sun and resting at dusk: a family tending ten mu of land, growing salad greens, making ferments, and teaching people to drive tractors in the project community.
33:09 Where the connection with nature began: in 1996, Sun Shan founded the Green Life Association – the first environmental conservation club established by any university in China – and set off on her path of exploring the natural world.
46:31 Feeling the land’s acceptance and generosity through growing food: even someone who is not particularly skilled at gardening, with just a little effort, can grow so much from the soil and take it to the market to share with others.”
48:32 Growing vegetables doesn’t necessarily make money, so you still need “half-farming, half-X” – selling fermented foods, running training workshops, doing consulting, writing books, and translating. After going half-farming, the helpless despair vanished, replaced by busyness and simple joy.
56:43 How do city-dwelling parents view their Peking University graduate who has taken up farming? As it turns out, owning land and doing honest, physical work can put a parent’s mind at ease too. By sharing the real, tangible experience of farm life, the bond with her family only grew deeper.
63:23 > Her son, who has no interest in farming and only cares about studying car engines, also found his own gentle, soothing way of connecting with nature during the pandemic – hatching chicks on the farm.
69:54 How can young people, weighed down by enormous pressure in life, find ways to cope with the setbacks they face so often by connecting with nature?
73:00 In truth, there are ten thousand ways to connect with nature. Each of us may find that moment that belongs solely to us – planting a single vegetable, or simply slipping our feet into the soil, letting the skin do the feeling, the gut microbiota begin their connection, unlocking the healing power within us that has been shut out in our forest of concrete.
76:48 Why can we say, “Nature has the answer”?
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All images in this article are from Sun Shan
This episode’s production team
Producer: Xiao Jing
Cover art: Wan Lin
Music: Banong
Editor: Wang Hao
Contact email: xiaojing@foodthink.cn