Tilling a field of dreams

What Xing Jianxin saw frightened him, and the former country boy made a decision to return home and start rehabilitating land 'addicted' to pesticides and chemical fertilizers. He tells Fan Zhen how he and his partner started their toughest assignment.

Xing Jianxin worked as a full-time photographer in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang province, and he often accompanied journalists when they covered agriculture-related issues.

He witnessed first hand how excessive use of pesticides had taken over the natural way food is grown, leaving farmers no choice but to keep using the artificial additives because they had become caught in a vicious cycle.

"The farmers genuinely believed pesticide was good at first because they were told so. But slowly, they found that their land had become 'addicted', and they could no longer stop using chemicals because nothing will grow otherwise," Xing says.

He also discovered a darker side of the market forces. Unscrupulous businessmen were buying chemical-tainted rice and labeling it "pesticide-free" or even "organic" even though it was clearly otherwise.

That bleak scenario got Xing thinking hard.

In 2008, he took on the huge commitment of leasing 12,000 square meters of land from his relatives and started planting truly organic rice.

In a parallel development, Li Xia, also from Northeast China, was having her own epiphany.

Like Xing, Li grew up in the countryside but left for the city at the age of 18, like many of her peers. While Xing pursued a career behind the lens, Li ended up doing administrative work in a State-owned company in Tianjin.

They met at an organic food project in 2010, and Li shared her concerns about food safety with Xing.

"It's been ages since I have tasted a mouthful of rice as earthy and good as what I ate as a child. I miss it so much."

The two kindred spirits decided to combine resources and devote their time to producing honest, organic rice. They started the Bashangtian Organic Farm.

"Bashangtian" translates to "eight thousand square meters of paddy" and is their field of dreams, a place where they can grow organic crops. They also created a wide strip of land that buffers their land and surrounding fields.

"This is the price you have to pay," Xing says. "Without this strip, pesticides from neighboring fields will contaminate our crops."

They also had to pay a higher price to the owner of the land so he would renew their lease each year, even though the land had to lie fallow in the first years.

Xing and Li also took another risk. They decided to grow the best heirloom rice, called daohuaxiang, or "the fragrance of rice flowers".

Li explains that this variety of rice has the longest growing period of about 140 to 150 days. Normally, it only takes 120 days to harvest a crop of rice.

"In Northeast China, the weather shifts dramatically in October. Sometimes it only takes seven days to change from early autumn to winter. If your crops are still not mature, they may get snowed over and get killed by frost."

They speak from experience. In 2012, the first snow arrived a month earlier, and their crop was destroyed. "We became the joke of the village," Li says. "Most people don't understand why we spend so much time and money doing something risky and that may not be necessarily profitable."

The risks are high, but their pursuit for perfection paid off when their rice passed organic certification in 2011 and attracted high offers from rice merchants.

"A major buyer offered us 75 yuan ($12.40) per kilogram," Xing says. "They wanted to package it for the high-end market, as corporate gifts. But we turned them down. Profitable as it may have been, it is not what we want."

What Xing and Li really want is to gradually influence farmers around them into producing good, safe food for everyday consumers.

They were delighted to discover the Beijing Country Fair community in 2012 and immediately felt at home. "We were really happy to see we are not alone in promoting healthy and safe food."

Even at the fair, the rice farmers had to slowly educate consumers who complained that their rice cost too much. Some customers told them that organic rice was sold much cheaper online.

"Some said the same kind of rice is only 8 yuan on Taobao," Xing says. "But I checked the online shop myself and they were selling much more rice than they could possibly harvest from their land."

Not every customer has enough knowledge or experience to see through the false advertising. Nor do they know that some rice may have artificial fragrances added.

"We realized we cannot control what others do in the open market. The only thing we can do is to do the right thing ourselves," Li says.

Every spring, they abandon their families in the city and rush back to the fields, plowing, sowing, irrigating and weeding. When autumn comes, they proudly bring their rice back to the city to sell.

The most rewarding moments, they say, is when they see young mothers coming back to buy more rice for their babies.

"They eat it when they are pregnant and now they believe it is safe and healthy for their families. It is their trust that keeps us going."

Contact the writer at fanzhen@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 01/10/2014 page22)