Where Are the Two Young Teachers Who Quit Teaching to Farm?
I.Leaving it All Behind to Farm
Life at the school was predictable right down to the final detail. We both wanted to seek out a different way of living. Though we hadn’t entirely mapped out where we’d go once we left our posts, one thing was certain: we both craved a living space that would allow us to express our creativity, and we shared a deep affection for nature and rural life.
So, in January 2024, we quit without another job lined up. It was around Chinese New Year, and An Tian and I were spending the holiday in our respective hometowns. While browsing online for information on ecological communities, I came across a recruitment post from Foodthink for its “Ecological Farm Internship Programme” and shared it with An Tian. I told him excitedly that this might well be our next step. After all, ideas only live in the imagination; you only discover the path you want to take by rolling up your sleeves and actually living in the countryside.
Three months later, we made our way to the Yinlin Ecological Farm in Conghua, Guangzhou, just as we had hoped. Over the next six months of the internship, we worked alongside the farm’s staff and growing teams in the fields, helped plan farm events, assisted with soft furnishings for the guest cottages, and occasionally pitched in to pick and pack produce. We tried our hand at nearly every role involved in running a farm, gaining a clear picture of the day-to-day work required to keep things running smoothly, all in preparation for eventually setting up our own.
Of all these duties, mastering cultivation techniques proved both the most vital and the most demanding. Ecological farming differs markedly from conventional methods: it dispenses with pesticides and synthetic fertilisers, placing a premium on soil health. The principle is straightforward—nutritious food can only be grown in healthy soil. At Yinlin Ecological Farm, compost is produced from traditional Chinese medicine residues and applied to enrich the earth. We learned to cultivate crops such as cucumbers and tomatoes on this revitalised ground.
II. Besieged by Pesticides
Looking down from the hillside onto Zaixia Village in May, a striking scene comes into view: scattered across the withered, yellowed earth are a few small, vividly green patches of field. This is because every spring the villagers plant tobacco, followed by rice and peanuts. During the tobacco-growing season, they spray heavy amounts of herbicide to keep weeds at bay. Once the tobacco leaves are harvested, the terraced fields on the slopes turn a uniform yellow. As for those isolated pockets of green, they are simply the vigorous weeds taking hold in our own plots.
This is the land where An Tian grew up. Yet without working here in ecological agriculture, we would hardly have realised how deeply ingrained the villagers’ reliance on chemicals has become in just a few decades. Herbicides are sprayed when crops change with the seasons, and again whenever the grass along the field edges grows too high.
When we first started growing passion fruit, any villager passing by would inevitably say, “You’ve got to clear the grass in the field. It’s no good letting it grow so long.” An Tian would reply in Hakka, “There’s no need to pull the weeds. Once they grow tall, we cut them down and they turn into fertiliser.”
This exchange was repeated time and again. Each time, An Tian would patiently explain, hoping that if they understood the principles behind it, they might reconsider their own methods. Later, when someone else raised the issue, a villager standing nearby would chime in to explain: “They simply don’t clear the weeds.” Though not fully understood, our practices had at least begun to register.
Just as deeply rooted as the insistence on herbicides is the outright aversion to grass. Here is a conversation An Tian had with a local villager:
An Tian: “Why are you spreading herbicide by the fish pond?”
Villager: “Grass is growing!”
An Tian: “Herbicides are toxic. If it runs off into the pond, the fish will die.”
Villager: “I know it’s toxic, but if grass grows, it has to be cleared.”
Conversations like these are at once exasperating and faintly comic, yet they leave a profound sense of futility in their wake. People are hardly ignorant of the toxicity of herbicides, yet an overgrowth of weeds seems to be the far less tolerable prospect.
The elders at home share the same mindset. When vegetables grown for the family’s own table show signs of pests and need treating, An Tian always warns that chemical pesticides are harmful to health, pointing out that since the food is for their own consumption, a smaller harvest hardly matters; eating healthily is what truly counts. Chemical use at home did indeed drop off, but the use of herbicides remains unavoidable.
Today’s villagers have reduced farming down to pesticides and chemical fertilisers. They are genuine smallholder farmers, yet they seem worlds away from traditional agricultural practices. Accumulating experience takes generations, but forgetting it takes only a few decades.
The villagers know well enough that crops grown without pesticides or chemical fertilisers taste better. But under the pressure of making a living, what they need is yield and economic return. With pesticides and fertilisers, yields go up.
To put it optimistically, we are simply trying to keep our own patch clean; pessimistically, we feel besieged on all sides.
Under these circumstances, securing a relatively isolated plot of land is vital for us. Yet the crux of the problem lies precisely here. This area is terraced, and when land was originally distributed for fairness, each household was allocated scattered strips—some higher up the slope, some lower down—leaving plots highly fragmented. Even though we abstain from pesticides, we are hardly immune. Once a neighbouring plot is sprayed, chemical drift inevitably carries traces over. I wonder whether this is a shared predicament for many newer ecological farmers?
We did consider renting a single, contiguous plot to resolve this, but it proved all but impossible. The village has a long-standing tradition of tobacco cultivation. As soon as the New Year passes, planting begins. Even households that do not grow tobacco themselves will tend the crop for relatives. For local villagers, tobacco farming delivers a reliable income with no sales worries; whatever they produce finds a buyer. Moreover, the tobacco company provides integrated farming support: they dictate planting methods and supply the precise fertilisers and pesticides required, leaving the villagers to simply do the growing. Consequently, there is no fallow land to speak of, and finding a consolidated plot to rent is exceedingly difficult. Fortunately, our passion fruit field occupies a fairly isolated site. Ditches and bamboo thickets line the boundaries, forming a natural buffer zone that significantly reduces drift.
III. There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Natural Farming Method
The soil posed the greatest hurdle. Natural farming demands adequately fertile ground, yet our passionfruit plot consisted of newly turned earth. The area had formerly been divided into more than a dozen small terraced plots. To make management easier, we used an excavator to merge and reshape them into five larger terraces. As a result, the soil was largely stripped of humus, leaving it nutritionally depleted.
To tackle this issue, one approach is to trade it for time: plant legume crops first, let them die and decompose back into the soil, and gradually restore the land’s fertility. Given enough time, the soil’s organic matter will steadily increase, but this method takes at least three to five years. The alternative is to apply organic fertiliser, giving the soil an immediate boost for the crops. This, however, demands labour and money. It’s manageable on a small plot, but scales up to a significant expense on larger fields.
Apart from these options, was there another way to bridge this transition? Faced with the practical need to sustain ourselves in the village, we had to rely on organic fertiliser to guarantee a first-year harvest. Yet once the base fertiliser was applied, should we continue applying more? We were left puzzled.
This dilemma drew scepticism from the villagers, who were firmly convinced that nothing would grow without fertiliser. “Just wait and see!” our conversations with them often ended on that note.
We were at a loss for words in the face of such doubts and could only persevere in silence. Even though we were firmly committed to natural farming, our inner confusion was impossible to conceal.
Only at this point did we realise our understanding of natural farming was limited to its broad definition: an agricultural method that emphasises following natural laws, minimises human intervention, and centres on respecting ecological balance to build a sustainable farming system through natural forces. But when confronted with these concrete, on-the-ground challenges, how were we supposed to put such principles into practice?
Just then, we noticed that Jia Bo, who had first introduced us to natural farming at Yinlin Farm, was hosting another workshop on the subject at Dou Doule Farm in Chengdu. An Tian and I signed up immediately. Through this further study, we gained a much deeper grasp of natural farming.
Natural farming does not mean entirely ruling out human intervention. Instead, it calls for necessary measures taken with a thorough understanding of, and respect for, how crops develop. The expertise to apply these interventions is honed through day-to-day practice and careful observation.
For instance, while natural farming emphasises the principle that grass itself provides nutrients, managing grass actually involves a fair bit of subtlety: if you are growing fruit trees, most low-growing grasses are perfectly fine, as they will not block the sunlight or hinder the trees. Climbing plants, however, must be kept at bay; once vines wrap round the trunk, they can restrict the tree’s growth or even kill it. In the early stages of growth, surrounding grass should be cleared to allow the crops’ roots to develop properly. Once the plants are robust, weeding is no longer required; if the grass begins to outgrow them, simply cut it back.
First, suitability to the local geography and climate. This is the most critical factor. If the local conditions are unsuitable, significant additional intervention is required, such as greenhouses. We aim to keep initial investment low and ease financial pressure in the early stages, allowing ecological farming to become a sustainable venture. Consequently, vegetables that can only be cultivated under cover are simply not on our radar.
Second, ease of transport. Products grown through ecological methods are rarely suited to local, farm-gate sales due to higher production costs and consequently higher prices, which local consumers often struggle to justify. In the local market, affordability tends to win out. Since our produce must be sold beyond the region, it needs to be shipped via courier, which drastically narrows down the viable crop options.
Third, whether the ecologically grown produce offers a noticeable difference from conventionally farmed alternatives. This consideration is largely driven by sales. If ecologically grown products taste indistinguishable from standard conventional fare, the market for them remains niche. Relatively few consumers actively seek out ecological produce, but if they can distinctly perceive a difference in flavour and texture, they are far more likely to make a purchase.
Weighing these three factors together, and drawing on observations of what local villagers already cultivate successfully, we settled on passion fruit and peanuts as the farm’s flagship crops. Both are well-suited to local conditions and relatively straightforward to ship.
We are also experimenting with tomatoes. Although they are notoriously difficult to transport, their flavour profile diverges most strikingly from conventionally grown varieties. Unfortunately, sowing them late in the first half of the year, combined with a spell of sweltering heat and heavy humidity, resulted in a total crop failure.
It is clear that expanding our crop variety will demand greater time and effort, alongside more advanced cultivation skills. We will also need to strike a careful balance between the number of crops we manage and the energy we can realistically dedicate. Viewed this way, the journey of ecological farming appears boundless, with one challenge inevitably giving way to the next. Yet, we take quiet pride in having reached this point through steady, deliberate progress, and we intend to keep moving forward. We have recently officially registered our family farm and launched a WeChat mini-store, while gradually building community groups to share the day-to-day rhythms of our cultivation and business. Everything is advancing in a measured, orderly fashion. The road ahead is long and arduous, but we will persevere and press onward.
All images in this article are courtesy of the author.
Editor: Yuyang