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At utopian farm, lifestock and people thrive
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PIGS in the Sun Commune in Hangzhou live in what literally might be called hog heaven.
They are fed on organic fodder mixed with herbs, root around orchards eating fallen fruit, they swim in a nearby stream, and when they are snoozing in their pens, they are serenaded by pleasant music. No wonder their home is called “the most beautiful sty in China.”
The chicken and ducks nearby have an equally happy lifestyle. No pesticides or chemical fertilizers in their backyard as they roam around search for worms and insects.
“It is a virtual utopia,” said Chen Wei, founder of the 470,000-square-meter commune nestled in a valley in Taiyang Town. “My colleagues and I spent a year finding this ideal place, with hills, water and open space so near to urban Hangzhou.”
Sun Commune
With Chinese consumers unsettled by food-safety scandals and obsessed with safe, quality eating, the organic food industry is gaining a strong, albeit still small, foothold in the nation’s agriculture. Crops produced by organic farms are very popular online.
Sun Commune’s strategy is to rent land from local farmers and help them to cultivate crops organically. The ecofarm commits to buying all the harvest and selling it to urban residents, relieving farmers of sales and inventory risks.
“Farmers are masters here, not workers,” said Chen.
The difference between Sun Commune and ordinary farm villages is obvious. To avoid pollution, cars are not allowed to enter the commune. An electric shuttle bus ferries people in and out. On every plot of land is displayed a large photo of the farmer responsible for cultivation there.
The commune also has rest pavilions and a cafeteria free to commune members and visitors.
The hog house was designed by Hangzhou-born architect Chen Haoru.
“I built it on the concept of an airport,” said Chen. “It’s large, one-story, flat and bright.”
The sty is 40 meters long, eight meters wide and five meters high. Its bamboo structure features a pyramid-styled ceiling that provide stability and light. All the bamboo, thatch and cobblestones used in the structure came from nearby hills and streams.
The sty area is designed so that when the gate is open, pigs are channeled along a path to first run in the valley. The pathway then funnels them to the orchards and finally to a stream so that they take a quick bath before returning on the path to their pen. The same channeling effect has been built for the commune’s chickens.
“Free-range animals grow strong bones and have increased oxygen content in their blood,” said Cong Junyi, deputy director of the Sun Commune. “If animals are in a good mood, we humans are in a good mood.”
Indeed, as a Shanghai Daily journalist observed, farmers and staff at the commune are a very happy group, always smiling their greetings to strangers.
“It’s just a natural reaction to the surroundings,” Chen said.
Why they are so happy? Because organic farming is becoming very profitable.
Farmers who cooperate with the ecofarm have seen their incomes more than tripled to about 35,000 yuan (US$5,320) a year.
New way of farming
“Before the commune, few people wanted to rent our land and only old people remained in the village to farm,” said Luo Xiqin, who raises chicken. “Now we earn money both from the rent and from what we produce. People in nearby villages envy us.”
In the beginning, acceptance of this new way of farming didn’t come easily. When Chen and his colleagues first approached farmers with the organic farming concept, they met resistance. There was suspicion about the motive of “city slickers” and doubts about the viability of cultivation without pesticides and chemicals.
To win them over, Chen chartered buses to transport the villagers to visit an organic farm. Seeing healthy, natural crops and livestock opened their eyes.
The farmers’ support was clinched after Chen told them that Japanese farmers during their lifetime plant only one or two species of crops so that they becoming experts in a narrow field. They earn as much as people in cities do, he told them.
Their response was music to his ears: “I want to grow cabbage.” “I can do radishes.” “My specialty is ducks.”
Most farmers in Taiyang are 50 years and older, and their children have left the farms to work in cities.
Chen asked the villagers, “If you wanted to attract your children back to the farm, what kind of annual income would they need?”
The farmers conferred with one another and came up with the figure of about 100,000 yuan a year.
“Then that will be one of the commune’s goals,” Chen replied.
At present, the commune cooperates with over 170 farmers and has a list of 200 members from urban areas who pay 25,000 yuan a year to receive organic farm products, including vegetables, meat and foods like honey and tofu.
In the future, Chen and his colleagues want to start a school specializing in eco-farming education.
They also have plans for an annual art festival and an “organic” hotel.
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