Urging Me to Spray Pesticides, Then Voting With Their Tastebuds
It’s been over two years since I moved to Evil Man Valley, and the annual costs for field labour and organic compost add up to no small sum. The local helpers I bring in often can’t resist working out the figures for me, pointing out that growing things this way costs far more than simply buying them. Exactly, which is precisely why I don’t dare buy them! Those offering advice originally mean to persuade me to shop instead of spending money and enduring the toil of growing my own crops. But the one listening feels that the more I hear it, the less willing I am to buy. No matter how exhausting or expensive, I must rely on myself. Rather stubborn, I know!
Although I handled the entire rice cycle from sowing to harvesting entirely on my own this year, when the weeds were at their most rampant in late spring, I still had to call in help to clear them.
I. “Matters” vs. “Doesn’t Matter”
I have my own repertoire of “it doesn’t matter” arguments, too. The woman I hired to weed remarked that my beans don’t look particularly pretty. I’m not entering a beauty contest, so aesthetics don’t matter; as long as they’re edible, that’s enough. A light harvest doesn’t matter; as long as there’s a crop, that’s fine. Even if I brought in nothing at all, it still wouldn’t matter; I’d simply bury the bean pods back into the earth to serve as green manure…
After four days of weeding, the lady collected her 500 yuan in wages, complete with a generous helping of free advice. Just before leaving, she didn’t forget a friendly reminder: a single bottle of herbicide costs just ten yuan, will sort the problem out in minutes, and saves you both money and labour…
II. Tasty vs. Edible
Taro bulbs and taro stems are both Hakka specialities. Peel the outer skin off the stems, blanch them, and they’re delicious stir-fried or added to soups. For my harvest rice, the evening accompaniment was a soup of taro stems and homemade tomato purée. The resulting rich tomato soup was absolutely divine.
I asked curiously, “Don’t you grow taro yourselves?” She shook her head: “We can’t eat it. There are too many chemicals.”
What a sudden turn of events. Should I laugh or cry?
III. To eat or not to eat? That is the question
The route to the market town takes me past vast tracts of taro fields. At harvest time, only the corms that meet grade are collected; the stalks are cut and laid out neatly across the fields, while the young shoots left standing go ignored. Although taro grow beneath the cut stalks, they do not meet the standards: outside buyers dismiss them as too small, and locals refuse them over pesticide concerns. I have to admit, the commercial crop looks splendid—uniform, attractive, two to three times the size of mine, and completely free of insect damage.
Every taro harvest season sees the roadsides lined with enormous lorries, all loaded with taro. To the left sits a giant articulated lorry with a red Shandong licence plate; further up, several similar trucks bear plates from Hebei and Henan, all northern provinces. When taking the photograph, I made sure to capture the payload marking on the cab door: 40 tonnes. A single load of seventy or eighty thousand jin feeds tens of thousands of households across the north, including my own in years gone by. The irony, of course, was that I was unaware then of a simple fact: the people who grow it do not eat it themselves.
The taro is cultivated with chemical fertilisers and pesticides, sprayed every few days. I have witnessed the spraying operations from a distance and done my utmost to stay clear. It used to be done with large knapsack sprayers, but has since upgraded to drones. Fully aware of the toxicity, they naturally keep it off their own tables.
It is not just taro that locals refuse to eat. During the Qingming festival, the local custom is to enjoy steamed rice-skin vegetable buns filled with spring bamboo shoots and dried tofu. The wrapper is made by mixing rice flour with the juice of the rat-curd plant (Gynura japonica), giving it a vibrant green hue and a delicate grassy aroma. Some women even make a special trip to my fields to gather this herb. Although it grows abundantly by field edges and roadsides, they insist: “It’s not safe to eat; it’s been treated with herbicide.” They are hardly ignorant of the dangers posed by pesticides and herbicides… it’s a situation that is as baffling as it is ironic.
IV. A Loss? Or a Gain?
This is precisely why I am so particular about the store-bought elements of my diet. My concern does not lie with the apple’s variety or place of origin, but with the chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides used in its cultivation, and the underlying question of why those who grow it choose not to eat it themselves.
Others sigh at the money I seem to throw away; I worry about the chemicals they scatter. I preach my sermon on avoiding chemical fertilisers and pesticides wherever I go, but it largely falls on deaf ears. In over two years, no one local has been willing to listen, save for an old man named Fan from the neighbouring village. I know I lack the power to resolve systemic issues by changing others’ minds, but I keep trying to address my own small-scale problems within the confines of my own valley.
I make choices based on what matters to me, and I accept the costs that come with them.
I am well aware that my refusal to use chemical fertilisers and pesticides invites mockery, and I know the consequences run deeper than mere ridicule. Whether it is my taro stalks or my rat-curd herb, locals consider it a bargain to be able to eat them, and I feel I am reaping a reward too. In the end, those very mouths that laugh at me are casting their vote in my favour.
