What is it like to ‘herd pigs’ on the Loess Plateau?
Every time I make this pork sauce, I am reminded of those happy, mountain-roaming black pigs in the highlands of Gansu, and my experience this spring visiting Wu Longlong, a young man who returned to his roots to “herd pigs”, through the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.
I. Returning Home
Of medium build and dressed simply in a dark smock, black trousers, and cloth shoes, Wu Longlong appeared lean and capable. He had been waiting for a while; his face was flushed red by the setting sun, and set against the distant yellow earth, he fit the “stereotype” of a man from the Northwest.
However, the glasses perched on his nose and his neat fringe hinted at a formal academic background rarely seen among the new generation of returning farmers. A native of Qingyang born in 1988, Wu Longlong graduated in 2015 from the Beijing Agricultural College with a degree in Animal Science. He never entertained the thought of seeking a career in the city and resolutely returned to his hometown of Ning County after graduation.
Ning County is the ancient site of the Yiqu state from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Located in eastern Long, it has long faced development hurdles due to poor transport and limited information flow. Wu Longlong told us that high-speed rail only reached Ning County in 2020: “Every train was packed back then; the elderly were all longing to take a trip to Xi’an.” Previously, travelling south to Xi’an or west to Lanzhou had been incredibly inconvenient.
Yet, the Qingyang region where Ning County lies has always been praised as the “Granary of Eastern Long”. It possesses some of the world’s deepest loess layers, making it exceptionally suitable for farming and one of China’s primary production areas for miscellaneous grains. Within Ning County, the Malian and Jiulong rivers flow into the Jing River system of the Yellow River; the water volume remains sufficient today, allowing rice to be grown along the banks.
In the first year or two after returning home, Wu Longlong wanted to leverage his hometown’s unique agricultural resources to create a circular farming system that combined crop cultivation with livestock breeding. He organised villagers to form a cooperative to raise cattle and sheep, and planted broomcorn millet on several hundred mu of contracted wasteland. However, once the grain was harvested, he found no way to sell it. He was forced to sell it as a generic agricultural product at a low price, losing his entire investment.
Lost and uncertain, Wu Longlong began to “reach out”. He participated in the “Lead Goose Project” at the Liang Shuming Rural Construction Centre and underwent training for new Northwest farmers, where he met many eco-farming peers. Soon, he decided to adjust his strategy to focus exclusively on ecological livestock breeding, honing his skills in pork butchery and market networking.
With a new perspective, a commercial breakthrough followed quickly. In August 2019, Wu Longlong was invited to record an episode of the Hunan TV variety show *Day Day Up*. In March 2020, CCTV-17’s *The Path to Prosperity* reported on his story of returning home to start a business. These two moments of “breaking through” to a wider audience conveyed his philosophy and eco-friendly products to many more consumers.
We piled into his Wuling pickup—the vehicle he uses to transport pigs and supplies—and headed straight for the farm. The satnav estimated the journey from the station at an hour and forty minutes. “If I push it, we’ll be there in just over an hour,” Wu Longlong said.
II. Pasturing Pigs
In the report *China’s Pork Miracle*, livestock expert Xie Minyi notes that the abundance of pork is due to government support for large-scale, industrialised and standardised production. By 2023, industrial pig farms (those slaughtering over 500 head) accounted for 68% of the market. In other words, most of the pork we consume comes from these facilities. High-yield breeds, cramped conditions, and shorter growth cycles have all contributed to a decline in the flavour of the meat.
The thought of that slightly gamey, industrial pork only made me more eager to see the black pigs. Furthermore, Wuluo Village, where Wu Longlong pastures his pigs, borders the Ziwuling National Nature Reserve in Gansu—his home turf.
As we set off, the view from the window was predominantly yellow, punctuated by occasional streaks of grey-green. As we drove deeper into the landscape, the terrain levelled out and the vegetation grew denser. “The mountains are incredibly green in the summer; it’s a completely different world! The ecology here is fantastic—leopards, badgers, wild boars, rabbits, deer… you can find everything.” We later discovered that the North China leopard population with the highest known density and number is located within the Ziwuling Nature Reserve.
Being so close to the reserve, it is inevitable that a few pigs are taken by leopards every year. However, Wu Longlong was less concerned than I had expected. He explained that pigs are social animals; when attacked by a predator, the entire herd unites to fight back. “They’re quite formidable!”
Answering a barrage of questions from my colleagues at the market, Wu Longlong was chatty, candid, and professional, handling the interrogation like a rapid-fire quiz show while never missing a beat behind the wheel. As dusk fell, the pickup veered off the tarmac and plunged onto a mountain track. The path was narrow and the slopes steep; we instinctively gripped our door handles.
“Whoa, you’re driving this pickup like an off-roader. This road seems quite dangerous… safety first,” remarked Wang Rui, who manages farmer visits for the Beijing Organic Farmers Market. He had been quiet throughout the journey until now. For Wu Longlong, however, this road is a daily route for his morning and evening rounds. Completely at home on these tracks, he simply replied, “You’ll get used to it!”
After a bumpy journey, we finally arrived at a small patch of flat land squeezed between a row of yaodongs and a deep valley. Rather than a proper pigsty, it was more like a series of fences made from wire mesh and wooden stakes, leaning against the abandoned cave dwellings. The pigs kept here spend their days foraging and playing in the mountains, returning to the yaodongs at night to rest, drink water, and eat a small amount of supplemental corn.
Unlike the backyard pig farming common in rural areas, Wu Longlong’s black pigs are free-ranged on the mountains for eight months of the year, using a combination of free-roaming and penned keeping. This is how the locals “herd” their pigs. Allowing the herd to move and forage freely in the valleys not only reduces feed costs but also saves on the investment required for housing and land.
Having never seen pigs herded this way, I couldn’t help but wonder: what do the black pigs actually eat on the mountain?
“The woods might look bare now, but by May, the mountains are full of yellow rose hips; they’re sweet, and the pigs love them,” Wu Longlong told us. Once the streams thaw, food becomes more abundant. The pigs usually fill most of their bellies by rooting for tender grass, munching on dandelions, eating insects, and drinking from mountain springs, requiring only about 250g of supplemental corn kernels per day. When the acorns ripen in autumn, the corn loses its appeal entirely, and the pigs feast on the fallen acorns to their heart’s content.
Wu Longlong explained that supplemental feeding isn’t just about making sure the pigs are full; it’s also to prevent them from becoming too wild, to stop them from joining wild boar herds, and to ensure they “recognise” people. Wild boars in the mountains survive perfectly well without anyone feeding them. In truth, once farmed pigs have learned the skill of finding food and water on the mountain, they no longer need humans; it is the humans who need the pigs.
III. Mountain Roaming
Early the next morning, we finally encountered the legendary mountain-roaming black pigs.
These pigs are raised by partner farmers from the neighbouring county. Wu Longlong has leased a hillside near the village, where he keeps three herds of about 30 pigs each. “Too many to count, roughly that number,” he remarked.
The mountain paths here are more treacherous, accessible only by motorised tricycles. As soon as the pigs spotted familiar faces and the tricycle, they crowded forward enthusiastically, shaking their heads and wagging their tails, thinking it was feeding time.
Wu Longlong admitted with some embarrassment that the pigs aren’t at their most attractive right now. Indeed, the piglets were skin and bone; because the mountain grass had only just begun to sprout, food was scarce and the pigs hadn’t yet put on weight. Still, they seemed incredibly happy—after all, they had an entire hillside to themselves.
As we walked, we observed the traces of the pigs’ activity. Pointing to a soft, trampled hollow in the earth, Wu Longlong said, “This is a nest the pigs made for themselves; they sleep here at night.” It looked remarkably cosy.
Generally, it takes nearly 10 months for a penned Gansu black pig to reach a market weight of over 100kg. However, because free-range black pigs eat wild forage and move more, they sometimes take over a year to mature. Yet, the meat of these overwintered pigs is richer in aromatic compounds and has a slightly higher lean meat ratio than penned pigs, offering a perfect balance of fat and lean.
Half of Wu Longlong’s piglets are bred on-site, while the other half are bought from village farmers. He prefers piglets that have grown up “wild” in a courtyard rather than those raised in incubators. “Those piglets have poor immunity; they wouldn’t survive on the mountain.”
Young piglets are frail and susceptible to disease and predator attacks. Therefore, piglets “captured” from other farms are first penned for a while and fed a different diet than adult pigs. They must be fed cooked corn, wheat, and beans, and the grains cannot be ground too finely, otherwise they easily suffer from diarrhoea. Once they reach four months of age, they can be released onto the mountain.
Compared to fully penned pigs, these mountain-roaming pigs are healthier and more robust. If a pig falls ill, Wu Longlong’s first choice is Traditional Chinese veterinary medicine for recuperation; for instance, if a pig suffers from “internal heat” after eating too many apricots, he gives them a herbal decoction.
If a condition proves untreatable, antibiotics are used. In such cases, the pigs are marked with ear tags for distinct treatment, with medication administered strictly according to regulations and followed by a mandatory withdrawal period. Once they reach market weight, they are sold as ordinary pigs to local villagers.
In recent years, about ten to twenty pigs are lost annually due to illness, leopard predation, or simply going wild and wandering off. During this visit, we even met a “One-Eyed Hero” who had narrowly escaped a leopard’s jaws; the pig had lost an eye and suffered a deep wound in its leg during the fight, yet it lived on stubbornly. Herding pigs against the backdrop of the Ziwu Ridge seems to be a blend of fortune and misfortune.
To reduce losses, Wu Longlong plans to implement more refined management by appropriately limiting the grazing radius and controlling the market cycle. Another patch of yaodongs by his front door has already been cleared for new pens.
IV. Family
Wu Longlong candidly shared that his father used to gamble and had accumulated significant debts in the village. After Wu Longlong graduated and returned home, some villagers asked him to pay back his father’s debts. He told them plainly: “I’ll pay any other debt, but as for gambling debts, there is no money!” This led to many conflicts between him and his father over the gambling habit, but he eventually succeeded in getting his father to quit.
His second uncle suffered physical and intellectual disabilities following an injection in childhood; he has never married and lives with Wu Longlong’s parents. After starting his business in the village, Wu Longlong gave his uncle the job of herding sheep. Other relatives who had migrated for work have also gradually reunited through the ecological farming project.
Alongside the ongoing adjustments of living in a large extended family, Wu Longlong has built a small family of his own. During the pandemic, he fell in love with Qiqi, a girl from Guangdong who came to the farm as a volunteer. They married and had a lovely daughter, Xigua. On the night of our visit, we enjoyed a Cantonese-style meal in a farmhouse courtyard on the Loess Plateau. There was a surreal sense of displacement, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the wonder of fate.
After ten years of “swimming against the tide”, Wu Longlong has finally established his career and family in the hometown he loves so dearly, achieving some solid results. His story has begun to inspire a new generation of youth returning to Gansu. In another ten years, I wonder what the Mutongxin Ecological Farm will look like?
Author
Z X
Foodthink Project Team and colleagues from the Dishwashing Department
Ze En
Editor at Foodthink. A Shaanxi native with a lifelong passion for wheat-based dishes, he is still perfecting his craft of making *lanrou saozi* (minced meat sauce).
Unless otherwise stated, images in this article are provided by Foodthink and Mutongxin Ecological Farm
Edited by Ze En