In Alshaa, a semiarid area of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Ma Yanwei, a postgraduate in ecology from Beijing Normal University, has spent years reinvigorating the salinized soil. (Photo provided to China Daily)
In Alshaa, a semiarid region located in the northwestern Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Ma Yanwei, a master of science in ecology from Beijing Normal University, has spent years reinvigorating the salinized soils by applying water-saving methods to cultivate fruits and crops that are suitable for the local conditions.
Sweet melon, for example, has become a best-selling produce of his farm Zhiliangtian. The smallholding was named in tribute to Zhi Liangzhi, the name for Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming's (1472-1529) belief in the innate conscience being the guiding principle of people's actions and their understanding of the outside world.
Ma aims to find the ideal organic farming methodology to both maximize the utilization rate of the scarce local water resources and to revive the soil.
"As long as the soil improves, it is only natural to harvest healthy produce," Ma told a Xinhua reporter.
In the last five to six years, Ma has seen more and more young people returning to the countryside to take on farming. In 2017, he set up a network for these "new peasants" to communicate, exchange their experiences and help each other, "so we can avoid long detours and mistakes previously made by others," he said.
"If everyone does a good job, the land will only better recover," he said, when asked if his approach simply creates more competitors.
At the Farmers' Market, a jianbing, a popular street snack, is made with beans freshly ground into paste. (Photo/Xinhua)
An idyllic farm, rebuilt
For 18 years, Zhang Zhimin, a former foreign trade expert with a State-owned group, has since been building an idyllic Eden in the far southwestern end of Beijing to produce foods and preserve biodiversity at the same time.
Fluent in English, French and Spanish, Zhang worked in food imports and exports around the time when China opened its market to the world outside. She said she believes that "agriculture is an art of humanity and nature working together."
At her bio-farm, nature rules over humanity's caprice. Instead of eliminating weeds and pests, the wholesome biosphere works by itself to produce seasonal harvests.
"Agriculture is the management of life, and life should be nourished by life itself," she said. It is the philosophy of her farm, called Heaven's Blessings, where trees, bushes and grass grow into inseparable woods, and insects, birds and cattle coexist in harmony. It's more like a habitat than a farm.
Nature by itself is resistant to a variety of threats that can harm crops, she explained. In the face of pests, pollution and climate change, biodiversity makes the most effective defense.
For example, a certain type of weed can produce a substance that fends off pests that are potentially harmful to crops. Earthworms, a populous resident at the farm, help to digest and transform fallen leaves into organic matter that fertilizes the plants, as well as to loosen the soil.
"Humanity's only job is to observe, comprehend and follow nature's rules to manage our lives," Zhang said.
She explained that in early summer, she chops off the tender leaves and branches of the weed under the peach trees to feed the cattle, making room for the crops to thrive. In early autumn she lets the cows roam free to finish off the rest of the weeds.
