14 Years After Returning Home, I Finally Started Farming

I. Nearly Leaving

After many years of returning home, I once thought about leaving this village altogether. Starting a few years ago, all the fields in the village had been leased to large farming households. In our Jiangnan “chrysanthemum village”, only our family still grows chrysanthemums and rice. Sericulture is a little more common; apart from us, there are a few scattered households.

Father asked hesitantly whether we should lease out our fields too.

He was probably a little sorry for getting in the way of the large farmers.

◉Click the image to read about the author’s last mu of Hangzhou white chrysanthemums in the village.

Since 2011, when we left Beijing and returned home, we have stayed in our own village. Over that time, we have experienced several changes.

At first, the motivation was very simple: just to go back to our own village and run a small organic farm. In my mind’s eye, the farm would be around our own house, lush green and full of life. I knew then that organic farming was unlikely to make money (though it was said to be able to support a family), but living in such an environment would be compensation enough (which is also why I admire Tang Liang). However, defeat was a predictable outcome for a 25-year-old second-generation farmer with almost no agricultural or social experience and not a penny to his name — even in his own village, he could not rent any land.

◉Tang Liang, a young returnee from Jintang, Sichuan (back row, first from the left), has put down roots on the land with his family. He is admired by many of his peers who have returned home but hit setbacks, and has opened up wider horizons for other young people about life. Click the image to read Tang Liang’s story. Photography: Tang Wei

After my farm dream collapsed, I first went to Huzhou, not far from home, where Old Shen was growing organic rice. It was early spring when I arrived, and the fields were empty. The original workers had left, and only an old man in his eighties remained to help look after things. Old Shen’s money was also nearly gone; he was looking for workers and funding at the same time. One villager, wanting to raise the rent, kept coming to argue with him. Early spring in Jiangnan is truly damp and cold, the hills especially so. Before long, all ten of my fingers had chilblains. In the evenings, I always had to soak my feet for a long time before I dared get into bed. In the middle of the night, Old Shen’s newborn baby son often cried and made a fuss. Old Shen’s farm was also in a precarious state. A few months later, I left.

II. Looking for a Village

By the time I picked up the dream of returning home again, a year had already passed. This time, it was no longer about opening a farm; instead, we returned to Jiangnan’s sericulture tradition and began making silk quilts as a family craft. So for many years, while most returning young people were farming, we were actually making quilts. After several years of making silk quilts, we also restored organic cultivation and traditional processing of Hangzhou white chrysanthemums on one mu of land in the village.

During that time, as a “veteran” among returning young people, I had seen too many failed organic farm startups. Besides, we never really regarded returning home as a business venture, nor did we want to grow big, so we never rented land; we only ever used our own little plot (literally one mu and a fraction).

When people introduced “Mei He Yu Farm”, I felt awkward because the area was so small, and it was also something of a misnomer. The year before last, we simply changed the suffix of our company name from “Family Farm” to “Sericulture Culture”.

◉In this 2023 podcast, Yu Jiangang also gave a detailed account of his experiences of returning home to work on silk quilts and Hangzhou white chrysanthemums. Click to listen to the podcast.

We really started looking for another village. We focused on the north-west direction of the county town, because that would be closer to where we lived and make it easier to take the children to and from school. I was thinking: leave our own village, but not leave the sericulture area. Find a place with a similar culture, so we could continue our work.

To be honest, over all these years, in our own village, with our parents and relatives, the wear and tear of an acquaintance society was truly emotionally draining. Physical separation would be better; out of sight, out of mind.

Our calligraphy teacher recommended a village in Wuzhen, saying there was a house for rent and a large mulberry forest right next to it, which would be very suitable for us. We were one step too late; by the time we went, it had already been rented as a warehouse.

There was another village that had long been planned for “townspeople” to start businesses in, and most of the original villagers had already moved out. The company operating the village had been running for several years, but was also in a state of semi-stagnation.

We also went to see the village where a friend runs a teahouse. Most villagers seemed preoccupied, waiting for the main road to the west to be widened so they could receive the long-awaited, enormous demolition compensation.

My wife Yu Hui found a house online, some distance from the main road. In front of the house was a patch of woodland. On closer inspection, underneath were rows of listless mulberry trees. It turned out that after the landlord had stopped keeping silkworms, the land had been planted with seedlings. The landlord said that if we wanted to keep silkworms, we could use all her silkworm trays. However, at the time construction workers were still renting the house and living inside, so we would have to wait until the end of the year.

At the thought of having to clean, decorate and organise this three-storey house (and the mulberry forest) again, and the enormous effort it would take, Yu Hui ultimately politely declined the landlord’s offer.

From time to time afterwards, we also went to the “townspeople entrepreneurship village” a few more times to see if there was a suitable house.

A struggling guesthouse was being offered for transfer, and Yu Hui got in touch to arrange a viewing. I said, “Are you really going to open a guesthouse?” She said, “No, a guesthouse doesn’t need to be renovated; it can be used directly as a studio for making silk quilts.”

We then asked the operating company whether it still had land. There was one plot, with an annual rent of 3,000 per mu. Why was it so expensive? That land could be used for amusement facilities and experiences. I was not doing amusement rides, just ordinary farming. Then there was nothing left; the ordinary land had all been leased by the company to grow tobacco.

I don’t remember whether this was the last time we looked for a village. In any case, the urge to leave kept spreading.

◉In a long article about returning home to start a business with his wife Mei Yu Hui, Yu Jiangang also described various models of rural development around him. Click the image to find out more.

III. A Familiar Stranger

It was not until autumn 2024 that the village’s osmanthus silkworms for this season suddenly suffered poisoning. The villagers all said it was directly related to the large farming households using drones to spray pesticides in the paddy fields they had leased. I could not bear to see the few remaining silkworm-raising households stop altogether; this was a village tradition that had continued for hundreds of years! We negotiated several rounds with the large farming households and the village chief, and finally decided to take over the 14 mu of paddy field beside the mulberry land and convert it to organic cultivation.

The problem was that I did not have much experience growing rice, let alone organic cultivation.

Rice really was a familiar stranger.

I remember in Year 3 of primary school, my mother dragged me into the paddy field to transplant seedlings, and “furiously” dropped a line: “You are a farmer, and you cannot even farm; who will support you in the future!” But my mother herself did not expect that later, what supported our whole family was not farming, but my mother and father going to work in a factory. With years of further education afterwards, I never again had the chance to become proficient in rice transplanting.

◉Although my mother was not in favour, she had always supported my dream of returning home through her labour. Click the image to read the author’s article about his mother.

The last time I farmed before leaving home was the summer holiday after the national college entrance examination ended. While I was transplanting rice seedlings in the dusk, my form teacher kept calling me to ask about my exam results.

After that rice transplanting, I first went to Jilin for university, then to Beijing to work, and never went into a paddy field again. After resigning in 2011, I did rural public-interest work in Longzhou, Guangxi, and actually took part in a rice-duck farming project with the villagers: going into the fields to observe apple snails, giving the villagers ducklings, and occasionally checking whether anyone was secretly using pesticides. Apart from that, I actually worked in the paddy fields.

◉When I was in Longzhou, Guangxi, I followed the village’s old secretary to graze cattle. Click the image to learn the author’s story of returning to Longzhou after more than ten years.

The few months I stayed at Old Shen’s organic farm fell exactly in the winter idle period; the paddy fields were barren and empty, and I did not work in the fields. The only occasion was when I had already gone back to work in Shanghai; still unwilling to give up, I returned to the village every weekend to farm. I grew 1 mu of organic rice. Later, the rice suffered from rice sheath blight, and the harvest was miserable.

IV. The World of Agricultural Inputs

Actually drawing up a plan for 15 mu of organic rice cultivation was quite a challenge. The agricultural inputs alone were enough to dazzle the eyes!

Compared with a decade or so ago, the market now has a very large number of commercial organic fertilisers. Granular organic fertiliser applied by drones can improve efficiency considerably over traditional methods.

There is a local organic fertiliser company that mainly promotes a kind of “organic slow-release fertiliser“, and its introduction mentions “using agricultural waste such as straw to extract natural high-molecular organic compounds such as lignin, cellulose, alginic acid and chitin for modification and activation”. But on learning more, I found that its organic matter content was only 15% (the standard requires more than 30%), and when I looked at the implemented standard it referred to, GB 15063-2020, it was actually a compound fertiliser!

Even qualified organic fertilisers come in many types. By form, they are available as powder, granules, or bulk bags; by implemented standard, there are general organic fertiliser (NY/T 525-2021) and bio-organic fertiliser (NY 884-2012); prices can differ tenfold — the cheap ones are 400–500 yuan per tonne, the expensive ones 4,000–5,000 yuan per tonne. The one constant is that there is no way to know where its materials actually come from; even what the materials are is vaguely stated.

If one wants to obtain government subsidies, one must purchase from organic fertiliser companies on the government subsidy list.

After a long comparison, in the end we still chose the “ancient” rapeseed cake. The raw materials are clearly identifiable, and it is local, which saves long-distance transport. Of course, that means it is difficult to spread mechanically, and also means no subsidy can be obtained.

The most laughable and embarrassing was the seedling trays. We entrusted an organic farm in Suzhou to help raise seedlings, and it was only on the day before rice transplanting that we discovered the seedling trays used in Suzhou were 9-inch, while our local ones were 7-inch. Because the sizes differed, the rice transplanter could not be used!

◉After a thorough comparison, we gave up using any commercial fertiliser and chose rapeseed cake, which is traditional and can only be spread manually, as the fertiliser.

V. Weed and Pest Control Plan

From February at the start of the year to mid-June, I kept formulating and revising the cultivation plan. I visited several places including Zhenjiang, Wuzhong, Yichang, Ningbo and Kunshan, and sought farming know-how from rice experts, returning young people, ecology teachers and others. We first settled on a basic approach to weed control:

1 Before planting, first let in water to irrigate, creating an ideal water and temperature environment for weeds; wait for one or two waves of weeds to grow before ploughing and farming;

2 Use rice transplanting, not direct seeding;

3 The field must be levelled very flat, so that weeds are less likely to grow after rice transplanting and flooding.

We also settled on an approach to pest control:

1 Transplant more sparsely for better ventilation;

2 Plant flower strips along the field edges to attract natural enemies;

3 The first year there will be more pests; wait until spiders arrive in the second year and it will be fine;

4 If necessary, use microbial agents / biopesticides.

But I had forgotten that the essence of agriculture is uncertainty … The first weed control rule was to let weeds grow in the field before rice transplanting, but this is best done by fallowing in the second half of the year.

The large grain-growing farming household on my fields had planted wheat in the previous crop; the harvest was usually around 20 May. So with rice transplanting in mid-to-late June, there was only one month, and not enough time left for weeds to grow.

As if it deliberately knew that I was going to farm, this time the wheat harvest was delayed by a week compared with previous years! After the wheat was harvested, I hurriedly contacted a tractor operator I knew to do rotary tillage, but he was busy harvesting wheat and ploughing land for a 2,000 mu large farming household. It turned out that all the tractor operators in the whole town were harvesting wheat and ploughing land for large farming households!

By the time I had finished making all manner of phone calls and the fields had been ploughed, it was already 31 May, the Dragon Boat Festival!

◉The sustained high temperatures of summer 2025 also made this year’s rice-farming career harder. On this day the maximum temperature was 38 degrees, and I had to go into the fields to work before sunrise.

◉When the sun went down, I would not finish work until it was dark.

VI. Hoeing the Paddy Fields

Whether in organic farming or conventional farming, tractors are used. Modern tractors can easily cost several hundred thousand yuan, so small farms and farmers like us have to rely on an agricultural machinery cooperative. It was only after starting to farm that I discovered the way agricultural machinery is operated has also been deeply influenced by large-scale conventional farming. The most obvious example is levelling.

Traditional Chinese farming places great emphasis on levelling the fields. According to my father, it had to be “like a mirror”. Only a paddy field that has been levelled properly can be managed through irrigation to control weeds, giving the rice a head start.

But large-scale conventional rice planting, relying on heavy use of herbicide, no longer emphasises levelling operations. Tractor operators mostly value efficiency, and the levelling technique and quality leave a lot to be desired.

The result of this decline in skill is that we bent over and hoed the fields four rounds in total, with some plots hoed five times. The “hoeing” in “ploughing and hoeing” means weeding and treading the weeds into the field.

◉Hoeing in this way, we hoed the 15 mu four or five times.

◉A comparison of hoed and unhoed fields.

As a farmer seeking a harvest, I do not want to, and cannot, say something glib like “coexisting with weeds”.

During most of the time bent over on the 38-degree heat days, I really hated weeds. Then, at one point—probably the day I was weeding in despair—I suddenly thought to look up the names of those weeds. That truly changed my attitude towards weeds.

Every weed has a name: Daolishihe, Dingxiangpiao, Erjishuixiancai, Yuanyejiejiecao, Sanlengcao, Yashecao. All of these weeds are also used in traditional Chinese medicine. For example, Dingxiangpiao can clear heat and toxins, promote urination and unblock the urinary tract, resolve blood stasis and stop bleeding, and can be used to treat dysentery, infectious hepatitis, nephritic oedema, cystitis, boils, carbuncles, sores, as well as snake or insect bites.

I plan to learn more about these paddy field weeds in the future.

◉From the top left, clockwise: Dingxiang, a paddy field weed; barnyard grass; weeds pulled out and tied together; Erjishuixiancai, a paddy field weed.

VII. Pests and Silkworms as One

The most dramatic episode came with the pests. As the hoeing progressed, rice leaf folder and rice stem borer appeared first; then came rice sheath blight and rice planthopper; rice leaf folder and rice stem borer kept cycling through new generations.

What could be done?

First, we used blue and yellow physical sticky traps, but the results were only average.

◉We first put up blue and yellow sticky traps in the field, but the results were only average.

I saw that an organic farming friend had in the end used microbial agents, which are permitted in organic agriculture. I thought I would keep some on hand in case they became necessary (spiders in the first year probably would not have been enough).

But while I was reading the details, I was startled to find that the microbial agents were specifically for killing lepidopterans — and silkworms are lepidopterans!

That makes sense, actually. I had even deliberately kept two insects — a rice leaf folder and a rice stem borer — just to observe their life habits. In the end they pupated, and after emerging from their shells they became moths, their eyes vivid and lifelike. Paddy field moths and silkworm moths — are they not rather similar creatures?

◉The moths in the paddy field and silkworm moths are quite similar, but human opinions of them are completely polarised.

So we decided not to use even the microbial agents — a “naked run”.

After this “naked run”, the paddy field still grew well, and the harvest finally arrived at the start of winter.

The foundation of success, I think, can be summed up as “three field practices, six characters”: field inspection, field drying, and hoeing.

◉After each day’s field inspection, washing my feet in a small stream.

Field inspection means making sure that every morning, before sunrise, I go round the paddy field once. The main thing is to check the water in the paddy field. Loaches, crayfish and eels in the paddy field dig holes at night, and once they have opened the paddy bund, all the paddy water leaks away; as soon as the sun comes up, weed seeds in the paddy field will germinate. Field inspection means finding and patching leaks in time, and then letting the water in again.

The field drying took place in early August, before the rice began jointing. Unlike field inspection, where water is added, field drying means draining the paddy field completely and letting it bake in the sun until cracks appear. This encourages the rice roots to keep growing downwards, makes the plants less prone to lodging, and keeps the plants healthier.

The difference between hoeing and weeding is that weeding only removes the weeds, whereas hoeing also treads the removed weeds into the mud, so the weeds actually become fertiliser for the rice — two benefits at once.

VIII. The Homecoming Dream Realised

Looking back on this year’s rice farming, seedling raising was on 10 May and rice transplanting on 20 June. In between, there were four rounds of manual hoeing, and all manner of weeds, pests, typhoons, high temperatures, fungal diseases and drought; finally, on 5 November, the harvest came in smoothly, completing the rice’s nearly 180-day life cycle. Although we humans put in a great deal of labour, much of the time it was Nature herself — sunlight, rain and dew, warm winds, soil, birds and beasts — who brought forth the fruits of a bountiful harvest, making one marvel at the power of nature! The yield per mu of fresh paddy of the main variety finally harvested was around 1,000 jin; it tasted soft, glutinous and sweet. I was quite satisfied with this result, and proud of myself too.

◉I ate rice I had grown with my own hands.

Fourteen years after returning home, I had once been on the verge of leaving. In the end, not only did I not leave, but I also, “without precedent”, rented other people’s land for the first time. Adding the original 1 mu we already had, I “without precedent” came to have a 15 mu organic paddy field farm, and this farm was right outside the window of our own house!

Was this not the simple, vague and beautiful wish of returning home that we had fourteen years ago?

Thank you, silkworms!

◉This year we will continue to grow the 15 mu of rice at the front of the house.

First draft on 9 February 2026, the 22nd day of the twelfth lunar month, Yi Si Year of the Snake

Revised on 23 February 2026, the 7th day of the first lunar month, Bing Wu Year of the Horse

Foodthink author

Yu Jiangang

Born and raised in Zhenghebang, a silk village in Jiangnan, he graduated from university in 2008 and worked in brand consulting in Beijing. Because of his concern for agriculture, rural areas and farmers, he resigned in 2011 and became an intern at Little Donkey Farm; subsequently, he also did volunteer work in rural development in Zhuang villages on the border of Guangxi and Vietnam. After returning home, with his wife Mei Yu Hui, he established “Mei He Yu“, working on the production of finely crafted silk quilts and the transmission of the craft, hoping to revitalise China’s agricultural and sericultural intangible cultural heritage and create a new tradition. WeChat official account: Mei He Yu; podcast: Tuanli Jiegou

All images, unless otherwise stated, are provided by the author

Editor: Tian Le