One Introvert’s 106 Days on the Farm
I first learned about ecological farming around 2016. Through my work in nature education, I naturally crossed paths with people who practise ecological farming and learned that many of them were growing food for the sake of healthy eating, a sustainable environment, and a meaningful life.
At the time, I was growing flowers and herbs on a city balcony and had just started experimenting with composting. With so little space, my composting could nowhere near keep up with the kitchen scraps I generated, and I used to think it would be wonderful to have a plot of land of my own.
It was not until April this year, when I came to Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, as a third-cohort intern on Foodthink’s “Ecological Farming Internship Programme”, that I truly felt for myself: farming is a high-risk line of work.
The land here is a gift from the Helan Mountains. It has been under cultivation for only a few decades, and since Zhiliangtian took root here, they have been nourishing the soil with sheep manure and green manure. If the soil is too sticky, you simply shovel in sand from the edges of the field and mix it in. Sand and soil were both brought here by wind and water. There is no sharp dividing line between them, yet the difference is unmistakable—and it is precisely that difference that nurtures the patchwork of life across the desert farmland.
Rainfall may be scarce, but after several years of building the soil, water-efficient, short-season crops such as honeydew melon, onions, and millet all grow well. On the farm, the age-old reality of living at the mercy of the sky is laid bare in all its fullness: sowing must be completed within the right temperature window; unpredictable gales make seedling growth a bumpy ride; and the rainy season during harvest is a ticking time bomb—a single downpour can split the melons, affecting market sales or sweetness. Amidst an increasingly volatile climate, losses from magpies and other birds picking at the crops are small potatoes.
I. One Young Person After Another
Farm mentor Ma Yanwei shared his entrepreneurial journey, explaining that his initial hope was to protect Alxa’s groundwater, lakes, and ecological environment through ecologically friendly, water-saving growing methods and thoughtful crop choices. Building on that, he wanted to use study tours to help more people understand this land and support the spread of ecological farming.
The farm’s Zhang Bin was an intern on the first cohort of Foodthink’s “Ecological Farming Internship Programme.” After completing his internship at Zhiliangtian, he went back to his family home in Gansu to start a sheep-farming business. At nineteen, still inexperienced, he hit every wall in sight. A year in, he realised how much more he had to learn and decided to return to the farm to study further. Zhang Bin calls himself a Qin native, and at such a young age he has already set his course: breeding high-quality cattle, sheep, and horses suited to the plateau.
At Zhiliangtian, a crop-focused farm, he often misses the cattle and sheep back home in Gansu. He has been planning to buy a horse and is working out how to create a sustainable rhythm of medicinal herb cultivation and livestock rearing across his family’s winter and summer pastures. Cattle, sheep, and horses are an inseparable part of him. At twenty, he has grown into the mountains, rivers, trees, and grasses, walking his own path with single-minded devotion.
Later, meeting more ecological farmers — each, for this reason or that, tending the land and nurturing themselves — I was reminded of the words of another farm mentor, Sister Yan Ping of Xingfu Baicaoyuan in Guangxi: “Farming isn’t hard. As long as you think of it as taking care of yourself, it doesn’t feel like a hardship.”
II. The Farm’s Ecological Wisdom
After the Start of Summer, the farm ordered a batch of snow chrysanthemum root cuttings online, planted them in late May, and they were in bloom by the end of June. At first, the weeds — morning glories chief among them — were all fighting for space. The morning glories in particular climbed all over the snow chrysanthemums’ thin, frail stems and leaves, causing no end of trouble. While the plants were still short, we’d do our best to clear every weed in reach. Eventually we simply couldn’t keep up, so we limited ourselves to pulling out the climbing morning glories and let the other weeds grow. To our surprise, this not only reduced the morning glories’ encroachment but turned the other weeds into sturdy props for the snow chrysanthemums, keeping them from being blown over by the wind. In growing snow chrysanthemums, we had inadvertently used weeds to outwit weeds. (P.S.: I recently learned that our snow chrysanthemum may actually be a potentially invasive species — two-colour Coreopsis [Coreopsis tinctoria] — so please think carefully before growing it~)
The free-roaming sheep and geese in the fields never touch the planted crops; they feed exclusively on weeds. According to Captain Zhao, who oversees planting and crop management at the farm, it is because weeds are more nutritious for them than the cultivated crops.
Sister Yan Ping’s Baicaoyuan keeps its weeds, as long as they are trodden down and do not hinder the citrus; Zhiliangtian, growing herbaceous crops like honeydew melon and millet, hand-pulls some of the weeds. How to manage weeds effectively while still letting them do their work — retaining moisture, holding the soil, and boosting the diversity and resilience of the farmland ecosystem — is well worth further exploration and practice.
III. Farm Life, Different from What You’d Imagine
One introvert’s 106 days on the farm — mostly 106 days of being around people — was a perfect case study in how much a person can overestimate themselves: overestimating one’s energy, one’s tolerance for communal living…
This year, Zhiliangtian had as many as ten volunteers at the same time. It was the farm’s first try at managing so many people with such different backgrounds, ages, and expectations, and all manner of unexpected things happened: friction caused by different work styles and communication patterns, the confusion of a large group fracturing into smaller cliques… The ten-odd volunteers had been chosen from over 80 applications this year. Seven or eight of them were gradually talked out of staying — some after just a few days, others after several months. There was no shortage of volunteers overestimating what farm life would be like, and perhaps no shortage of the farm overestimating its own ability to manage things, either.
This could not help but make me wonder: what is it about ecological farming that draws so many people — including all the farm mentors — to test just how tiring it can be, knowing full well it will be, or to press their foreheads against the wall, knowing full well it is solid?
IV. Perhaps Because There Is Still Nature[1]
Then there are the shooting stars that appear without warning, the Milky Way spilling across the whole sky, and the sunsets that are different every day yet always spectacular. Even an occasional day of blowing yellow sand becomes a kind of spectacle in itself.
A rainy day is like New Year’s Day. The comfort of feeling the whole earth washed clean is something you can only appreciate in person. The farm folk immediately start kneading dough, mixing fillings, and making dumplings — everyone here handles North-Western wheat dishes with ease. The wild onion that grows lush and green all the way through August is always a must on the table.
At such moments, warm flashes of time with the farm folk float before my eyes: chatting idly on the covered walkway in the rain with Uncle Qian, Zhang Bin, and Mu Ge, plus Bai Ling’er; watching the resident artist Li Dan lead everyone in releasing balloons to trace the wind’s path; following the campfire, my body relaxing without thinking, singing along with the kids despite being completely tone-deaf; everyone’s beautiful voices under the starlit sky; Zhang Bin on his three-wheeler, taking us all to the small town for barbecue; watching the Milky Way together, the full moon hanging on the Helan Mountains; going to Sister Bai’s place to see the lambs; Captain Zhao, in charge of production, washing his hands to cook a proper meal for everyone…
Perhaps it is because of this kind of nature, this kind of place, that over 80 people wanted to come to this stretch of land in Alxa to volunteer. Even though the farm has many problems in its operations and management, much confusion, and when faced with the uncertainties of site, climate, market, and people, it still chooses to persist with ecological growing, everyone who comes here is doing their part.
V. If It Is Just About Nurturing Yourself
The internship programme delivered on its promise of a full three months in Alxa. At the time I figured: if I can stick it out in a place this dry, this sandy, this alternately cold and hot and blazing, this unsuited to a southerner, then I should be able to handle most farms, and the hardships of farming should be within my endurance. Later I realised that was rather naive. Farms under different climates each have their own ups and downs — after three months in Alxa, heading back south felt oppressively humid. The sandy soil of Alxa is actually good ground to work for someone like me who cannot shoulder a load or lift a heavy pail.
In the two months after the internship, besides resting and recovering, I have been visiting farms in various places, repeatedly checking whether my desire to enter agriculture is just a passing fancy. For most of my life I have walked one step at a time, looking at most two steps ahead. But since finishing the farm internship, holding onto the thought that I need a plot of land, I often find myself thinking about what I want to do — and what I can actually do — over the next five or ten years.
What having a farm, or being a farmer, truly means to me — I am probably only a little clearer about it than I was at the start of the year. There is still much to work out through practice (hitting walls). All I know for certain is that I love being on the farm. And yet, can farming actually keep me fed?
And beyond that, for me: what is the real difference between the countryside and the city? Why do I feel drawn to rural life yet dare not put down roots, unable to leave the city yet always wanting to escape?
Sister Xi Xi at Muyunpo says that even if the work is for the environment or rural development, it does not always have to be done from within the village. You can also do supportive work from within the city’s systems.
My answer these days is perhaps this: I hope the countryside becomes a part of my life, or most of it. I hope to create for myself a sustainable, half-farming, half-X way of living.
Since first coming across nature education in 2016, the wheels of fate have brought me a great deal. I am lucky to see so many seniors in their respective fields — nature education, community support, biodiversity conservation, environmental protection, rural education, ecological farming — each walking their own path. Everyone holds on to what the world calls naive. And what is wrong with that? We are all just nurturing ourselves.
[1] “Perhaps Because There Is Still Nature” — the phrase comes from Sister Meizi’s WeChat Moments series “But There Is Still Nature,” borrowed here to express the theme of this chapter.
To date, three rounds of recruitment have been completed, supporting over 60 partners in joining more than a dozen ecological farms across the country for internships ranging from three months to a year.
Editor: Mei Ying