## Detailed walkthrough
### [00:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=2s) Satellite Remote Sensing and High-Tech Pest Monitoring
The discussion opens with the host remarking on how the guests completely overturn the stereotypical image of a traditional farmer. Rather than doing manual field labor in the conventional sense, one of the guests, Dr. Zhang, is a satellite remote sensing specialist and technological talent. The host brings up how Dr. Zhang recently helped secure a bumper harvest across 330,000 mu of farmland in Jiangsu Province, an achievement that was featured in the news.
Dr. Zhang modestly downplays the praise, explaining that his team merely made a small contribution to the region. In Jiangsu, agriculture is heavily centered on staple grains like rice and wheat, which are perpetually vulnerable to severe pest infestations and crop diseases. Dr. Zhang’s team provides an airborne early-warning system that correlates satellite observations with meteorological data to forecast where outbreaks are likely to strike before they spread. As Dr. Zhang explains: “This way, we can use fewer pesticides to control these outbreaks and reduce crop losses.”
- **Target Coverage**: 330,000 mu of staple grain farmland (primarily rice and wheat) in Jiangsu Province.
- **Core Technology**: Forecasting pest and disease vectors by combining satellite remote sensing imagery with meteorological data.
- **Objective**: Pinpointing disease emergence from above to drastically cut pesticide application while shielding overall yields.
---
[00:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=58s) The Produce on the Table: Selective Breeding and Fruit Evolution
The host pivots the conversation to the universal concern of food safety and diet, drawing attention to a spread of fresh farm produce laid out on the table, whose natural fragrance fills the room. Among the items are fresh melons, a Beibei pumpkin, and kale leaves—on which a live little green caterpillar is spotted crawling, underscoring the absence of chemical insecticides. The host notices an unusually elongated watermelon and wonders whether it was genetically altered, drawing comparisons to Japan’s famous square watermelons. The grower clarifies that this variety is an oblong "hanging watermelon" trained to grow along vertical trellises rather than sprawling across the dirt, a shape specifically favored because it packs neatly into standard shipping boxes for direct-to-consumer delivery.
The dialogue delves into how agricultural traits develop through selective breeding versus genetic modification. The speakers trace the origins of modern fruits back to their wild ancestors: watermelons originally hailed from Africa, where wild specimens were small, bitter, or flavorless, while wild tomatoes were originally tiny berries. Through generations of selective breeding and cross-pollination within the same species, humans continuously kept and replanted the seeds of the sweetest, largest, or best-shaped plants. Transgenic technology, by contrast, splices genes across species boundaries, such as inserting pumpkin or cucumber traits into other crops. As one speaker points out about modern supermarket vegetables: “The big tomatoes we eat now were actually bred artificially.”
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Crop Modification Pathways
accDescr: Comparison between natural selective breeding, crossbreeding, and transgenic genetic engineering.
subgraph WithinSpecies["Within-Species Development"]
SB["Selective Breeding<br/>(Choosing natural traits like oblong shape or sweetness)"]
CB["Crossbreeding<br/>(Hybridizing varieties within the same plant species)"]
end
subgraph CrossSpecies["Cross-Species Engineering"]
GM["Transgenic / GMO Technology<br/>(Transferring genes across distinct plant or organism species)"]
end
SB --> WildToModern["Wild African melon & small tomato to modern commercial crops"]
CB --> WildToModern
GM -.-> HighCost["High R&D cost; restricted to large staple crops"]
```
---
[03:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=211s) Organic Agriculture Standards and the Economics of GMO Seeds
When asked to demystify what legally qualifies as organic agriculture, the guest outlines the baseline national standards. At the core, organic certification strictly forbids chemically synthesized pesticides, synthetic chemical fertilizers, and transgenic (genetically modified) seeds. While the official regulatory code spans dozens of pages, the guest stresses that these prohibitions are merely the baseline outcome rather than the underlying mechanism. A widespread misconception among the public is that organic farming means total neglect—abandoning fertilizer and passively letting pests consume the crop. In reality, successful organic farming requires engineering an intricate biological equilibrium where pests are managed naturally through soil restoration, beneficial insects, and habitat diversity.
Addressing the broader debate around food genetics, the guest explains why consumers rarely encounter genetically modified vegetables in the market. Engineering transgenic seeds demands massive, multi-million-dollar research and development investments. Agrochemical corporations can only recoup these R&D expenditures on vast monocultures of global cash commodities like corn and soybeans. For specialty vegetables with comparatively limited acreage, such as broccoli, developing a GMO seed makes no commercial sense. Furthermore, the guest clarifies that China has not approved any GMO vegetable or grain seeds for commercial cultivation, confining transgenic approvals strictly to non-edible crops like cotton and controlled experimental settings. The guest summarizes the holistic philosophy behind the practice: “It’s that behind this 'no use' is a more complex system—it's about how you can make your agricultural system, through its biodiversity and ecological restoration, capable of operating without pesticides or fertilizers.”
---
[06:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=379s) From City Girl to American Farm Intern
The host asks about the female guest’s academic path, noting that her background was not in agronomy, but in agricultural economics within management studies. Her transition from academic theory to hands-on farm labor occurred around 2008, following a series of high-profile domestic food safety scandals in China. At the time, an American research institute offered an exchange sponsorship for a Chinese student. Crucially, the placement was not in an academic university lecture hall, but embedded directly inside an operating sustainable farm to observe firsthand how foreign growers addressed the negative externalities of industrial agriculture.
Securing the position was difficult. Having grown up entirely in the urban environment of Baoding, Hebei, her resume screamed "city girl" with zero physical agricultural experience. Interviewers pressed her on whether she had ever spent prolonged hours working under harsh outdoor weather or endured extended downpours in the field, leading to repeated rejections before she finally found a farm willing to take her on. The motivation behind the exchange remained clear: “Instead of blindly following the Western large-scale farm model, we should look at how they address the problems they've already encountered.”
- **Academic Major**: Agricultural economics (management studies).
- **Origin**: Raised in urban Baoding, Hebei Province.
- **Timing & Context**: Around 2008, spurred by Chinese food safety crises and interest in sustainable food production.
- **Interview Hurdles**: Rejections due to lack of manual labor experience, unfamiliarity with prolonged outdoor exposure, and urban background.
---
[07:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=468s) Farm Life with Nun Sisters and the Ecological Cycle of Waste
The internship ultimately landed her on an organic farm run by two biological sisters who were Catholic nuns, the eldest daughters of a nine-child family. Expecting an academic residency where she would observe and conduct light research—perhaps venturing into the fields for an hour or two if she felt like it—she was immediately confronted with the reality of full-time, strenuous physical labor, truly becoming a farmer from day one.
The living conditions reflected a strict commitment to closed-loop ecological ethics. The guest recalls her initial bewilderment upon discovering that her fellow intern and roommate refused to flush the toilet after urinating in order to conserve water. At first, she found the habit incomprehensible and flushed it for him, only to later realize the underlying philosophy: water is treated as a finite part of a larger ecological cycle, and human waste carries vital nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that belongs back in the soil. The farm operators joked about how mainstream society wastes clean water to wash away natural nutrients only to spend fortunes treating sewage downstream. The guests note that while recycling human and livestock waste as "farmyard manure" was once standard practice across rural China, modern agricultural systems have largely abandoned this natural nutrient loop. Describing the sisters' long-term vision, the guest notes: “They said their ideal was to eventually be able to use all the waste we produced on the farm and put it into the fields.”
[09:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=598s) Lessons from the Soil: Homegrown Flavors, Satellite Monitoring, and "Farmers of Forty Centuries"
The conversation turns to the foundational lessons learned from working hands-on in American agriculture, contrasting conventional chemical-heavy farming with natural cultivation. Reflecting on a full seasonal cycle spanning from April to October, one speaker describes the revelations that came with growing, harvesting, and eating their own food. Their earliest task on the farm was the simple, grounded chore of collecting and washing eggs. The payoff came when they paired those fresh farm eggs with dried wood ear mushrooms brought from China: the resulting stir-fry produced such a rich, fragrant yolk that a single dish became an entire satisfying meal, permanently changing their perception of how food ought to taste.
When asked whether his academic background in the United States involved similar fieldwork, Dr. Zhang explains that his research operated on an entirely different scale. Rather than managing small vegetable plots or soybeans, his university work focused on staple grains like corn and major cash crops, monitored primarily through high-tech tools such as satellites and drones. This contrast between industrial scale and traditional stewardship led Dr. Zhang to translate *Farmers of Forty Centuries*, a landmark agricultural text written in 1911 by F. H. King, a former director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Soils who had toured China, Korea, and Japan in 1909. King was captivated by how East Asian farmers sustained soil fertility across millennia before the advent of modern industrial inputs.
As Dr. Zhang observes, “He mentioned that what shocked him most when coming to China was how every farming household composted organic matter and returned it to the fields—that kind of process.” This closed-loop recycling prompted King to reflect on what genuine agricultural permanence looks like, long before large-scale industrial farming came to dominate the American landscape.
- **Growing season observed:** April to October, managing vegetables through their entire cycle.
- **Historical text cited:** *Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or Permanent Agriculture of China, Korea, and Japan* by F. H. King, based on his 1909 journey and published in 1911.
- **Academic research scope:** Utilizing satellite remote sensing and drone aerial monitoring to oversee large-scale staple grain operations rather than smallholder plots.
---
[12:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=736s) Black Dirt and Respect for the Land: Soil Compaction and the Perils of Raw Fertilizer
The discussion shifts to soil quality and the reverence experienced growers hold for their dirt. Working in Minnesota, the guest encountered rich, black soil endowed with immense natural fertility. On that farm, they only needed to apply fertilizer once across the entire season. In fact, when the farm owners experimented with a potent bug-based organic fertilizer, it was so strong that it actually scorched the seedlings. As one speaker notes, “It’s just that when your land is already very fertile, adding a lot of extra fertilizer isn't really appropriate.” The property maintained two distinct sections: an expansive, machine-tilled plot dedicated solely to potatoes, and a hand-tended vegetable plot where the ground remained so light, airy, and soft that one’s feet sank into it.
This softness required strict discipline. Coming from an urban background, the guest initially walked across the vegetable beds without realizing the harm, prompting an immediate rebuke from the seasoned farmers: “Don't go there, that's where we grow the vegetables.” Stepping onto the planting bed compacted the aeration of the delicate soil, undoing weeks of cultivation. Farmhands were required to stick strictly to the narrow walking paths between rows, underscoring a deep, almost sacred respect for soil structure that stood in sharp contrast to the dense, machine-compressed potato field.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Comparison of Farm Soil Management
accDescr: Contrasting high-mechanization potato fields with manually cultivated vegetable beds.
subgraph PotatoField["Mechanized Field (Potatoes)"]
direction TB
P1["Large-scale machinery"] --> P2["Compressed, hardened soil structure"]
end
subgraph VegBed["Manual Bed (Vegetables)"]
direction TB
V1["Strict path discipline"] --> V2["Aerated, sponge-soft black earth"]
V2 --> V3["Single seasonal fertilization"]
end
```
---
[14:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=888s) The Bittersweet Reality of Farming: Hard Labor, Natural Fragility, and Physical Toll
Addressing whether this reverence stems from ancestral roots, Dr. Zhang shares his background as the child of suburban Beijing farmers. He recounts childhood memories of carrying human urine from outdoor household pits to use as garden fertilizer, including an early blunder where he applied uncomposted raw waste and killed a large persimmon tree standing outside his grandfather’s home. Another speaker chimes in that they made the same error just the previous year, burning a chili plant to death by over-fertilizing. Proper composting, they point out, is vital because raw biological waste releases intense heat and toxic ammonia that scorches root systems unless allowed to ferment and stabilize.
Dr. Zhang emphasizes that beneath any pastoral romance lies the grueling reality of rural Chinese history, marked by high labor inputs, meager economic outputs, and the burden of former agricultural taxes. Growing crops by hand is an agonizingly slow and fragile gamble: cucumbers require months of staking and trellising, tomatoes frequently fail, and northern staple crops yield only once a year while facing constant threats of drought, flood, and pests. Before modern infrastructure, Chinese farmers lived under chronic poverty and precarity.
Even on an American organic farm with modern amenities, the raw physical wear on the human body is punishing. Reflecting on their own time working abroad, one guest recalls doing eight-hour days exposed to blazing sun, wind, and rain with only an hour break for lunch:
> “I found it quite strange, because even after working for half a year, right up until the time I was about to leave, I was still in pain—aching pain.”
While the farm crew often theorized that a healthy human balance would consist of three hours of field labor, three hours of craftwork, and two hours of intellectual study, grinding through relentless eight-hour manual shifts pushed physical endurance to its limit.
- **Agronomic hazard:** Raw, unfermented urine or manure generates excess heat and nitrogen burn, easily killing mature trees and delicate vegetable plants.
- **Crop vulnerability:** Months of labor for staple crops or vines can be wiped out in a single adverse weather event, keeping traditional smallholders economically vulnerable.
- **Idealized vs. actual work rhythms:** An envisioned 3-3-2 daily split (fieldwork, artisanal crafts, study) versus the reality of unbroken eight-hour physical labor in extreme weather.
---
[17:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=1056s) Debunking Yield Myths: Mechanized Organic Farms and Natural Pest Control
The panel tackles the common misconception that forgoing synthetic chemicals automatically leads to poor harvests. While smallholder vegetable gardening demands intense manual work, yields can rival or exceed conventional output when soil microbiology and farming techniques are properly aligned. As the guest points out, “In fact, as long as you master the techniques and have good soil and good skills, you can achieve very high yields.” Nearby in the Midwest, broad-acre organic farms spanning 4,000 to 5,000 acres of wheat, corn, and soybeans operated efficiently with minimal personnel—sometimes managed by a single couple or even a solitary farmer—relying on specialized tractor implements for mechanical weed control rather than chemical herbicides.
Because diverse vegetable crops cannot easily accommodate tractor weeding cultivators, they remain labor-heavy. However, organic farming does not mean abandoning pest management altogether; rather, it replaces synthetic toxins with botanical extracts and biological solutions. Farmers deploy plant-derived essential oils and natural pyrethrins extracted from chrysanthemums, brew microbial plant enzymes to repel pests, and purchase pre-packaged cards of ladybug eggs to release into greenhouses, where the hatched predators consume destructive strawberry aphids.
One speaker shares an encounter from New Zealand filming a traditional Māori vegetable plot, where the grower utilized companion planting:
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: Organic Pest Control Hierarchy
accDescr: Three complementary methods used to manage farm pests without synthetic chemicals.
A["Organic Pest Control"] --> B["Botanical Sprays"]
A --> C["Biological Predators"]
A --> D["Sacrificial Plants"]
B --- B1["Pyrethrin extracts & enzyme washes"]
C --- C1["Ladybug cards for aphid suppression"]
D --- D1["Chrysanthemum borders diverting insects"]
```
The Māori gardener planted dedicated double rows of chrysanthemums and flowers alongside food crops. These served as both an early-warning radar and "sacrificial plants," attracting harmful insects away from the primary vegetables while their natural fragrance acted as an ambient deterrent, reinforced with diluted homemade chrysanthemum water sprays.
- **Scale of mechanized organic farms:** Single family operations efficiently managing 4,000 to 5,000 acres of organic grain using mechanical weeding implements.
- **Botanical insecticides:** Naturally derived pyrethrin compounds extracted from chrysanthemum flowers as a non-synthetic alternative to chemical pesticides.
- **Biological control agents:** Commercially sourced beneficial insect cards (e.g., ladybugs) deployed in enclosed greenhouses to eliminate aphid infestations on high-value fruit crops.
[30:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=1831s) The Living Soil and the Hidden Subsidies of Chemical Fertilizers
The discussion opens with an examination of the ancient relationship between soil and fertilizer, focusing on the fundamental biological truth that soil is a living entity. When plant matter decays, fallen leaves and stalks release nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and carbon back into the earth, where microorganisms process them into bioavailable plant nutrients—embodying the classic poetic sentiment that fallen blossoms transform into spring mud to nourish future growth. However, this self-sustaining cycle has been deeply disrupted by modern chemical practices. A speaker points out that the true economic cost of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is obscured by massive state support: value-added tax (VAT) exemptions during manufacturing and heavy transport subsidies artificially suppress the market price. The speaker argues: “If you want to change farmers' heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers, you should shift the subsidies, like the ones for chemical fertilizers, to organic fertilizers instead.”
This artificial cheapness creates a severe ecological mismatch across modern agriculture. While arable farmland is increasingly depleted of organic matter and natural fertility, industrial-scale livestock operations—raising cattle, pigs, and chickens—generate immense quantities of manure that have nowhere to go, transforming a valuable organic resource into a severe pollutant. Because modern agricultural supply chains remain decoupled, the farming sector currently lacks an efficient, widespread technological and logistical solution to redirect livestock waste back into impoverished soils.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Subsidized Chemical Fertilizer vs Decoupled Organic Cycle
accDescr: Flowchart illustrating how chemical subsidies lead to soil depletion while livestock waste creates environmental pollution.
subgraph ChemTrack ["Subsidized Chemical Model"]
A["Government Subsidies (VAT & Transport)"] --> B["Artificially Cheap Nitrogen Fertilizer"]
B --> C["Soil Depletion & Loss of Organic Matter"]
end
subgraph OrganicTrack ["Decoupled Industrial Livestock"]
D["Industrial Animal Farms (Cows, Pigs, Chickens)"] --> E["Accumulated Animal Waste"]
E --> F["Environmental Pollution & Waste"]
end
C -.->|"Lacks Closed-Loop Link"| E
```
[32:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=1940s) The Ecology of an Orchard: Weeds as Water Retention and Green Manure
Walking through an organic orchard, the dialogue turns to why the paths between the fruit trees are thick with spontaneous vegetation, including common dandelions. Far from being neglected, this carpet of diverse weeds serves critical agricultural functions. Pulling back the weed layer reveals cool, moist topsoil underneath; bare soil exposed to direct sunlight would lose its moisture to rapid evaporation. Furthermore, the diverse plant undergrowth creates an essential habitat for insect breeding and biodiversity. When asked whether hosting insects merely breeds destructive crop pests, the orchardist challenges the premise entirely: “In this ecosystem, there are no pests. Everyone has their own natural predators. Perhaps the label 'pest' is just something humans defined.”
Beyond retaining soil moisture and balancing insect populations, the weeds act as self-generating green manure. As they are mowed or naturally wither during the onset of winter, their biomass decomposes into humus. Through this consistent biological return, the orchard’s soil organic matter has risen to between 4% and 5%—a level of soil fertility comparable to the renowned, naturally rich black soil (*chernozem*) of Northeast China.
- **Moisture preservation:** Dense ground cover shields topsoil from solar radiation, preventing rapid water evaporation.
- **Ecological pest control:** Multi-species weed cover supports a balanced food web where natural predators keep herbivore populations in check.
- **Humus regeneration:** Mowed and decayed plant matter continuously builds organic matter up to 4%–5% in the orchard topsoil.
[33:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=2031s) Feeding the Microbes: Worm Castings and Composted Cow Manure
Examining the soil surface reveals earthworms, centipedes, and fresh worm castings that have zero foul odor, smelling only of clean, rich earth. This absence of stench stems from thorough biological fermentation. The speaker clarifies a common misconception about organic farming: the grower is not directly fertilizing the crop, but rather nourishing the microbial biome of the soil. As earthworms and subterranean microbes digest organic residues, their metabolic secretions and byproducts dissolve in groundwater, creating an easily absorbed nutrient reservoir for tree roots.
The orchard applies this philosophy directly through an on-site, closed-loop cycle. In autumn, before the onset of the Beijing winter freeze, workers dig fertilization pits along the drip line of each fruit tree—matching the perimeter of the root system, which extends directly beneath the outermost canopy branches. These pits are filled with fully composted manure produced by the farm's own dairy cattle herd. Because the dairy facility is located directly adjacent to the orchard, the transport distance is virtually zero, eliminating logistics costs and completing a clean, odorless biological loop.
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: Closed-Loop Soil Nutrition Cycle
accDescr: Flowchart showing dairy manure composting, soil microbial digestion, and root nutrient uptake.
A["On-Site Dairy Herd Manure"] --> B["Aerobic Composting (No Odor)"]
B --> C["Trenching at Tree Canopy Drip Line"]
C --> D["Earthworms & Soil Microbes Digest Compost"]
D --> E["Soluble Secretions Dissolve in Water"]
E --> F["Root Absorption & Tree Growth"]
```
[35:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=2155s) Labor Intensity and the Global Dilemma of Feeding 6 Billion People
The reality of maintaining an organic orchard highlights a sharp economic trade-off: labor intensity. The farm’s 80-*mu* orchard requires four full-time workers to manually manage weeding, pit fertilization, pruning, and fruit-bagging. On a conventional, chemically driven farm of equivalent size, mechanized chemical spraying and synthetic fertilization could reduce the labor requirement to just a single person. This stark difference sparks a debate over whether organic agriculture can realistically provide global food security and sustain staple grain production.
One speaker asserts that while niche organic crops near urban centers are viable, synthetic fertilizers remain indispensable for feeding the world's population: “And I personally believe this is, well, almost the most important factor in allowing the human population to reach 6 billion today.” In response, the guest counters that China’s total human and livestock waste could theoretically provide a 100% replacement for synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, but current infrastructure completely lacks localized, circular systems between livestock operations and cropland. Furthermore, synthetic fertilizers and agrochemicals remain dangerously exposed to the petroleum age: “It’s a specific model, and furthermore, the production of chemical fertilizer itself is restricted by our era of petroleum-based agriculture; both fertilizer and pesticide production are highly dependent on oil.” Chemical agriculture, tracing back only to the Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis and the Green Revolution of the 1930s, represents merely a brief, petroleum-dependent blip in human history that will face an inevitable reckoning as energy peaks.
- **Manpower requirements:** 80 *mu* of organic orchard requires 4 full-time workers, versus approximately 1 person for a conventional chemical orchard.
- **Nitrogen replacement potential:** Calculations indicate domestic livestock and human excreta in China could theoretically replace 100% of chemical nitrogen inputs.
- **Fossil fuel reliance:** Modern synthetic ammonia and pesticide synthesis depend strictly on crude oil and natural gas feedstocks.
[38:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=2321s) The Limits of the Green Revolution: Herbicides, Superweeds, and African Cash Crops
The conversation shifts to the global limitations of the Green Revolution, particularly in Africa. Synthetic chemical fertilizer is useless without reliable irrigation, which explains why the Green Revolution struggled across arid and rain-deficient African regions, succeeding only where water was available, such as parts of South Africa and West Africa. In tropical and sub-Saharan conditions, the primary agricultural bottleneck is not just soil nutrition, but relentless weed competition. This explains why agribusiness focused heavily on herbicide-tolerant genetically modified organisms (GMOs): the driving purpose was not pest resistance, but eliminating the backbreaking manual labor of hand-weeding through broad-spectrum herbicide spraying.
However, intensive chemical spraying quickly triggers evolutionary resistance, yielding "superweeds" that survive heavy chemical applications. The speakers compare this arms race to human medicine: “Right, so it's just like humanity using antibiotics—you have to decide whether you want them or not. Do we humans need antibiotics? Yes, we do. But antibiotics lead to superbugs. Still, we have to keep developing new antibiotics.”
Compounding these ecological challenges is Africa's post-colonial agrarian structure. Rather than prioritizing domestic staple grains, vast tracts of prime land remain dedicated to export commodities like bananas and coffee destined for Western markets. African nations use the foreign exchange earned from these luxury exports to purchase staple foods on the global commodity market. This dependency strips them of food sovereignty, leaving domestic food supplies vulnerable to international financial speculation and market shocks rather than actual production costs.
[51:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=3060s) Traditional Ecological Wisdom vs. The Real Cost of Organic Farming
The discussion begins with a reflection on ecological heritage, referencing a text on traditional Chinese pesticides that compiles botanical and traditional medicine-based plant defenses. Rather than relying on synthetic agrochemicals that pollute the soil and surrounding environment, the speaker argues that tapping into historical and folk ecological practices offers viable alternatives. However, the conversation immediately turns to the economic realities facing everyday producers. When asked why conventional farmers avoid organic methods, the answer comes down strictly to input expenses and market dynamics: if an organic harvest yields products that compete at standard grain prices while incurring significantly steeper operational costs, farmers will inevitably default to chemical-driven agriculture.
The financial disparity is particularly pronounced in fertilization, weeding, and disease prevention. While synthetic fertilizer requires only a few dozen pounds per mu, ecological vegetable farming requires extensive composting and roughly two tons of bulky organic fertilizer per mu, which drastically multiplies labor and transport costs. Furthermore, because chemical herbicides are excluded, weeding must be handled by hand or with limited machinery. Ecological agriculture shifts the core investment from reactive treatment to proactive environmental design: rather than spraying pesticides once an outbreak occurs, growers meticulously regulate greenhouse humidity and temperature and nurture soil biology to prevent disease from taking hold in the first place. As one speaker explains: “In terms of growing vegetables, on average, we need two tons of organic fertilizer per mu, from composting it to applying it to the fields.”
- **Fertilizer inputs compared**: A few dozen pounds per mu for chemical fertilizer versus approximately two tons per mu for organic compost.
- **Weeding limitations**: Mechanized weeding options remain scarce for vegetable crops, forcing organic growers to rely predominantly on manual labor.
- **Preventive greenhouse management**: Maintaining strict climate control prevents high heat and excessive humidity, stopping pathogens before chemical intervention becomes necessary.
[53:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=3210s) Ecological Indicators and the Lowering Method for Luffa
While inspecting the greenhouse rows, the speakers spot a praying mantis among the foliage. Its presence serves as a direct ecological bio-indicator; because mantises are exceptionally sensitive to chemical contamination, they cannot survive in fields subjected to routine synthetic pesticide spraying. Moving along the trellis, attention turns to yellowing lower leaves on the luffa (loofah) crop. Rather than signaling an uncontrolled plant pathology, the appearance reflects the plant's advanced life cycle and a specialized vertical management technique known as lowering.
The grower explains that as the luffa vines continue to fruit and produce down below, the long bottom stems are systematically detached and coiled downward toward the ground. This lowering practice keeps the active flowering and fruiting canopy at an ergonomic, convenient picking height for field workers while maximizing seasonal yield from a single plant. Pointing out the extensive stem length and the sheer quantity of gourds already harvested from it over time, the speaker jokes that the vine has reached the equivalent of an elderly lifespan. As the host observes: “The mantis is an environment-sensitive insect. If you use pesticides frequently, it wouldn't exist on this farm.”
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Luffa Lowering Method
accDescr: Diagram illustrating the continuous cycle of harvesting and lowering luffa vines to maintain optimal working height.
subgraph GrowthCycle ["Vine Canopy Management"]
A["Active Flowering & Fruiting Canopy"] --> B["Melon Reaches Harvest Maturity"]
B --> C["Worker Harvests Fruit at Picking Height"]
end
subgraph TrellisAdjustment ["Lowering Process"]
C --> D["Lower Lower-Stem Section"]
D --> E["Coil Elongated Stem at Ground Level"]
E --> A
end
```
[54:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5xCPaq9w8&t=3265s) Pests, Natural Predators, and Orchard Management
Entering the peach orchard, the visitors take in a lush harvest that evokes the mythical Peach Banquet from *Havoc in Heaven*. Inspecting the ripening fruit reveals the challenges of non-chemical fruit production: several peaches bear pitted pockmarks left by sap-sucking stink bugs. While the internal flesh remains edible, cosmetic flaws make them impossible to sell commercially. The growers note that birds and insects naturally target the sweetest, highest-quality fruit first. While bird damage was severe two years prior, the farm mitigated the issue by combining protective fruit bagging with deterrents such as scarecrows, auditory noise, and recorded music.
The orchard operates on a balance of pest pressures and biological counter-measures. Although aphids target tender spring shoots and attract ants, the farm relies on beneficial predators like ladybugs and green lacewings to regulate aphid colonies without harming the trees or fruit. In lieu of synthetic fungicides and chemical insecticides, the orchard relies on seasonal applications of lime sulfur during spring and autumn—a mineral-based, physical protective wash made of sulfur and water. After demonstrating the gentle twist-and-lift motion needed to detach a peach without snapping the fruiting branch, the host samples an unsellable pockmarked peach before the group heads off to observe the farm's free-range chickens, noting with amusement that one of the birds has feathered feet that look like little boots. As the grower emphasizes regarding biological pest control: “Because ladybugs will eat the aphids, and lacewings will too, so it naturally forms a cycle.”
- **Cosmetic damage vs. commercial viability**: Stink bug bites cause surface pockmarks that render peaches unmarketable despite sound interior fruit quality.
- **Bird management toolkit**: Physical bagging of fruit clusters, scarecrows, manual scaring, and broadcasted music.
- **Natural predator guild**: Ladybugs and lacewings suppress aphid and whitefly populations on young shoots.
- **Mineral treatment**: Liquid lime sulfur spray provides seasonal physical and antifungal protection without synthetic toxins.
[0:02] Both of you have completely subverted
[0:04] my image of what a farmer is. This is a
[0:10] satellite remote sensing expert, a tech
[0:12] talent.
[0:14] >> Dr. Zhang, did you not, just last year,
[0:16] for Jiangsu Province,
[0:18] >> create a bumper harvest on 330,000 mu?
[0:20] That even made the news. No, no, I
[0:22] think we just made a small contribution
[0:25] . Jiangsu Province is primarily focused
[0:27] on rice and wheat as staple crops, and
[0:29] they mainly suffer from pests and
[0:31] diseases.
[0:33] >> So, what we provide is risk monitoring
[0:36] for these pests and diseases based on
[0:38] meteorological and satellite data, to
[0:40] predict if such risks will occur in the
[0:42] future. This way, we can use fewer
[0:46] pesticides to control these outbreaks
[0:48] and reduce crop losses. So you mean you
[0:51] can see from the air whether this area
[0:53] might face a disease outbreak in the
[0:55] future?
[0:56] >> Yes.
[0:58] >> Today we’re going to talk about a
[0:59] topic that everyone is particularly
[1:01] concerned about: what we eat. We have
[1:03] it all laid out here on the table, and
[1:05] I could smell the fragrance as soon as
[1:07] I sat down. Doctor, can you tell us
[1:08] what this is first?
[1:10] >> This is a melon.
[1:11] >> A melon.
[1:12] >> I wasn't sure if it was a honeydew or a
[1:13] muskmelon. And this is a pumpkin, right
[1:15] ?
[1:15] >> A "Beibei" pumpkin. Ah, a Beibei
[1:18] pumpkin and kale. There was even a
[1:19] little green caterpillar crawling here
[1:21] just now. This is a melon.
[1:22] >> Yes, a little green one.
[1:24] >> Why is this watermelon shaped like this
[1:26] ?
[1:26] >> It’s because we deliver to consumers
[1:28] now, so it’s more convenient to fit
[1:29] in a box. Otherwise, it’s hard to
[1:32] ship.
[1:32] >> Oh, it’s been modified. Didn't they
[1:35] have those square watermelons in Japan
[1:36] before?
[1:37] >> The variety we grow is called a "
[1:39] hanging watermelon," because it grows
[1:41] hanging from a vine.
[1:43] >> I thought watermelons always grew on
[1:44] the ground. They say it used to be very
[1:47] small, maybe the size of this pumpkin
[1:49] in the wild. Later, they developed
[1:51] these traits through natural genetic
[1:53] changes.
[1:54] >> That’s crossbreeding.
[1:55] >> That’s crossbreeding. You see,
[1:57] crossbreeding happens within the same
[1:58] species. Hmm.
[1:59] >> Within the species, for example, there
[2:01] is selective breeding and also
[2:02] crossbreeding. As you mentioned,
[2:04] watermelons originated in Africa. If
[2:06] you’ve ever been there, the
[2:07] watermelons aren't actually sweet and
[2:09] don't taste that great. I’ve actually
[2:11] eaten that original type of watermelon.
[2:12] >> The process involves two parts: one is
[2:15] constantly cross-pollinating different
[2:17] types, and the other is continuously
[2:19] selecting from those. For instance, if
[2:21] I want it to be sweeter, and maybe one
[2:23] out of ten is sweet, I’ll keep
[2:25] selecting that one. That’s what we
[2:27] call breeding within the species.
[2:29] Nowadays, transgenic technology can use
[2:31] genes from the same species or others;
[2:34] for example, I could use cucumbers,
[2:36] pumpkins, or other vegetables.
[2:39] >> Right, I wanted to ask, if you make it
[2:42] long for easier transportation, is that
[2:44] also considered a change, right?
[2:46] >> This variety already existed.
[2:48] >> Selective breeding.
[2:49] >> Yes.
[2:50] >> Oh, that's called selective breeding.
[2:51] >> From these, I just select the long ones
[2:53] . Does that mean it mutated to become
[2:55] long, or was it already like that
[2:57] through hybridization? For instance,
[3:01] with this, they might find the sweetest
[3:03] one in every generation—from all the
[3:04] ones you’ve grown, I pick the
[3:06] sweetest one, and then I use that for
[3:08] the next batch of planting.
[3:12] >> So, it’s actually through a natural
[3:14] process that you can make it
[3:15] increasingly meet people's needs.
[3:19] >> You know, even tomatoes, the earliest
[3:21] ones in the world were actually small.
[3:25] The big tomatoes we eat now were
[3:26] actually bred artificially.
[3:31] >> But your philosophy is that while you
[3:32] don't exclude these new technologies,
[3:34] chemical fertilizers and pesticides are
[3:36] absolutely not allowed.
[3:39] >> Yes, they are not allowed to be used in
[3:41] our organic farming.
[3:42] >> Mm. Could you explain this to us? Many
[3:45] people aren't very clear on the
[3:47] concepts; for example, when we talk
[3:49] about organic agriculture, what exactly
[3:51] counts as organic? Well, to put it
[3:53] simply, the current national standards
[3:55] for organic agriculture state that,
[3:57] first of all, you cannot use chemically
[3:59] synthesized pesticides or fertilizers.
[4:02] And that also includes transgenic seeds
[4:04] ; these are not allowed.
[4:06] >> Of course, our standards span dozens of
[4:08] pages, but simply put, these are the
[4:10] minimum requirements. Actually, this
[4:13] standard isn't just a rule; I think
[4:15] it’s more of a result. Because when
[4:17] some people hear "no chemical
[4:19] fertilizers," they think you don't use
[4:21] any fertilizer at all and no pesticides
[4:22] , so they assume you don't even control
[4:24] pests and just let them eat all the
[4:26] vegetables. That's actually not the
[4:28] case. It’s that behind this "no use"
[4:32] is a more complex system—it's about
[4:34] how you can make your agricultural
[4:36] system, through its biodiversity and
[4:38] ecological restoration, capable of
[4:40] operating without pesticides or
[4:42] fertilizers. Is that really possible?
[4:46] Because many people might have a lot of
[4:47] questions about this process, wondering
[4:49] how it can actually be done.
[4:51] >> When I was studying agriculture,
[4:53] especially organic farming, I had the
[4:55] exact same question. But when you’re
[4:58] actually on the front lines of
[4:59] agriculture—especially now with our
[5:01] facilities and supporting farming
[5:03] technologies—you realize the earth
[5:04] provides so much abundance that you
[5:06] simply can’t eat it all. Of course,
[5:11] when it comes to technology, like seeds
[5:13] —people might worry about GMO
[5:15] vegetable seeds—the truth is that the
[5:17] R&D cost for such seeds is extremely
[5:19] high. For common vegetables, developing
[5:25] a GMO seed is almost impossible because
[5:27] the planting volume is just too small.
[5:30] Why are GMO seeds only things like corn
[5:32] and soybeans? Because their acreage is
[5:35] large enough that the commercial
[5:37] returns from researching those seeds
[5:38] are enough to cover the costs. But if
[5:42] you research a GMO seed for something
[5:44] like broccoli, the global planting area
[5:46] isn't big enough, so the R&D cost
[5:48] wouldn't be worth it at all.
[5:52] >> So, relatively speaking, there aren't
[5:54] any vegetable seeds like that—as it
[5:56] stands now, are there no GMO vegetable
[5:58] seeds in China either? Is there
[6:00] absolutely none in China? Because I
[6:01] heard...
[6:02] >> No, we haven't approved them. Currently
[6:06] , neither vegetables nor grains have
[6:08] approved GMO seeds for planting.
[6:12] >> There are some experiments for major
[6:14] staple crops, and for things we don't
[6:16] eat, like cotton, those do exist.
[6:19] >> So was your major back then agriculture
[6:21] ?
[6:21] >> I actually majored in agricultural
[6:23] economics, which is under management
[6:25] studies. Then how did you end up going
[6:27] to the U.S. to be a farmer? It was very
[6:29] coincidental, because when I was in
[6:31] school...There was an opportunity where
[6:33] the school mentioned a U.S. research
[6:35] institute that wanted to support...A
[6:37] Chinese student. But the thing is, you
[6:40] wouldn't be going to a university, but
[6:42] to a farm, to learn about their
[6:44] sustainable agriculture model. Because
[6:48] I recall around 2008, there were some
[6:50] food safety incidents in China, so they
[6:52] hoped we could have this kind of
[6:53] exchange. Instead of blindly following
[6:57] the Western large-scale farm model, we
[6:59] should look at how they address the
[7:01] problems they've already encountered.
[7:04] >> And it turns out you were rejected many
[7:06] times when you applied, right?
[7:08] >> Yes, because I look like a "City Girl,"
[7:10] I grew up as a city girl after all.
[7:14] From birth until I grew up, I was in
[7:16] Baoding, Hebei, growing up in the city.
[7:19] >> Then they took one look at my resume
[7:21] and saw I had absolutely no
[7:22] agricultural background.
[7:23] >> I had studied agriculture, but I’d
[7:25] never actually done the work. Yes, for
[7:27] instance, there are a few questions he
[7:29] asked that I still remember clearly.
[7:32] Like, have you ever worked outdoors for
[7:34] long periods? Or roughly what is the
[7:38] population of your city? Also, for
[7:41] example, have you ever spent time
[7:43] outdoors while it was raining?
[7:45] >> After the interview, they just rejected
[7:47] me.
[7:48] >> How did I end up at a farm run by a
[7:50] pair of sisters who were nuns? These
[7:54] nuns were from a family of nine
[7:55] children, and they were the two eldest.
[7:59] I went there as an intern, and at first
[8:01] , I thought I was going there to
[8:02] conduct research. I had imagined I’d
[8:06] maybe work half the day, and then if I
[8:07] felt like it, I’d go out into the
[8:09] fields to work. But after arriving, I
[8:14] realized my actual role was to help
[8:16] with real farm work, and while doing
[8:18] that, I would experience what this new
[8:19] agricultural model was all about.
[8:23] >> Mhm.
[8:24] >> So, right from the start, I had to get
[8:26] into the labor.
[8:27] >> I was really there to do the work; I
[8:29] really became a farmer.
[8:30] >> I really did go to be a farmer, exactly
[8:32] . But when you were there, I read some
[8:34] reports saying their lifestyle was
[8:35] quite interesting. It said that a
[8:38] friend of yours couldn’t even flush
[8:40] the toilet—you couldn't flush urine
[8:41] because you had to save water, as they
[8:43] believed that water was part of the
[8:45] cycle and had to be used sparingly. Yes
[8:49] , but I actually didn't understand it
[8:50] at all at first. My roommate, who was
[8:54] an intern with me, wouldn’t flush
[8:56] after using the toilet—I mean, for
[8:58] urine. I didn't get it, so at first,
[9:02] I’d always flush it for him. Later,
[9:05] after I had been there for a while, I
[9:07] understood why. Because much of our
[9:10] human waste can actually be returned to
[9:11] the fields. They themselves had a bit
[9:14] of self-deprecating humor about it,
[9:16] saying we Americans are too wasteful.
[9:19] We flush all this fertilizer away, and
[9:21] then we have to go treat it. They said
[9:24] their ideal was to eventually be able
[9:26] to use all the waste we produced on the
[9:27] farm and put it into the fields. Mhm,
[9:31] but in many rural areas in China, they
[9:33] really do recycle this waste themselves
[9:35] .
[9:35] >> Very rarely now.
[9:36] >> Very rarely indeed.
[9:37] >> Because in the past, we used to call
[9:39] this organic fertilizer or farmyard
[9:41] manure. Farm manure actually refers to
[9:43] human or even livestock excrement. It
[9:47] is rich in phosphorus, potassium, and
[9:49] other related nutrients because we
[9:51] consume those, and it serves as a
[9:53] fertilizer. Currently, on a much
[9:56] broader scale and in larger farming
[9:58] operations, people generally use
[10:00] chemical fertilizers more.
[10:02] >> The use of farm manure is relatively
[10:04] less common.
[10:05] >> So, what exactly did you learn over
[10:06] there regarding agriculture itself?
[10:10] >> First of all, I grew all the vegetables
[10:12] for that season, from April to October.
[10:15] And, another thing is that I cooked and
[10:17] ate the vegetables I grew myself.
[10:19] >> Hmm.
[10:20] >> I realized that home-grown produce can
[10:22] taste so good, and my first job there
[10:24] was actually collecting and cleaning
[10:25] eggs.
[10:26] >> Later, I made a dish using wood ear
[10:28] mushrooms I brought from China, and I
[10:30] stir-fried them with eggs.
[10:31] >> Wood ear mushroom stir-fried with eggs.
[10:33] >> When I ate those eggs, the aroma was
[10:35] incredible. I wondered if it was
[10:40] because of where they came from or
[10:41] something else; the combination of the
[10:43] egg yolk and the mushrooms was so
[10:44] fragrant that one serving was enough
[10:46] for an entire meal. Dr. Zhang, you also
[10:52] studied in the U.S. Did you actually
[10:54] farm while you were at the university?
[10:57] >> We were involved in it, but we mostly
[10:59] dealt with large-scale crops like corn.
[11:03] >> We rarely dealt with things like
[11:04] vegetables or soy on such a massive
[11:06] scale. We mainly used satellites and
[11:10] drones for ground monitoring, so we
[11:12] mostly focused on staple food crops or
[11:14] major cash crops. Actually, after I
[11:18] returned to China, I translated a book
[11:20] called*Farmers of Forty Centuries*,
[11:22] which discusses China's thousands of
[11:25] years of farming history.
[11:26] >> Was it a book written by an American?
[11:28] >> Yes, he was actually a director of the
[11:30] U.S. Soil Bureau who came to China in
[11:33] 1909 and wrote the book in 1911. It's
[11:35] been over 110 years now.
[11:39] >> He mentioned that what shocked him most
[11:41] when coming to China was how every
[11:43] farming household composted organic
[11:45] matter and returned it to the fields—
[11:46] that kind of process. Back then, the
[11:52] kind of large-scale industrial
[11:54] agriculture we see in the U.S. didn't
[11:56] exist yet, so he reflected on which
[11:58] form was truly sustainable, which is
[12:00] why his book is titled "Permanent
[12:02] Agriculture." After returning to
[12:08] farming myself, I’ve been thinking
[12:10] back to when we worked on that farm; we
[12:12] actually only fertilized once the
[12:13] entire season.
[12:16] >> Because the soil in Minnesota is
[12:18] incredibly dark. It’s naturally very
[12:22] fertile, and I remember the farm owners
[12:24] wanted to try using some kind of
[12:26] bug-based fertilizer, but after using
[12:28] it for a while, it actually burned the
[12:30] seedlings. It’s just that when your
[12:35] land is already very fertile, adding a
[12:37] lot of extra fertilizer isn't really
[12:38] appropriate. But it made me realize
[12:42] that the fertility and the value of
[12:44] that soil, especially the soil where we
[12:46] grew the vegetables, was really
[12:47] something. We had one plot for
[12:51] vegetables, and another specifically
[12:53] for potatoes; the potato plot was much
[12:55] larger and entirely machine-cultivated.
[13:00] The quality of the soil in these two
[13:02] plots was different; the vegetable plot
[13:04] felt like you were sinking into it
[13:05] because it was so soft. And I could
[13:12] feel the deep respect the people on the
[13:13] farm had for the soil; you know how
[13:15] there are small paths between each row
[13:17] of vegetables? At first, I didn't know
[13:24] where to walk, because as a city person
[13:26] , you don't know which part to step on,
[13:28] and they’d tell me, "Don't go there,
[13:29] that's where we grow the vegetables."
[13:34] They felt that just by walking there,
[13:36] you were compacting the soil. You had
[13:39] to walk on the paths between the
[13:41] vegetable rows, and that potato plot
[13:42] where we used large machines—you
[13:44] could clearly feel that the soil was
[13:46] very...
[13:48] >> It was completely different in quality
[13:50] from the vegetable plot; do you have
[13:52] such a deep attachment to the land?
[13:55] >> I might be a bit of an exception,
[13:56] because my family back home are all
[13:58] farmers.
[13:59] >> Mm.
[14:00] >> Although my ancestral home is in
[14:01] Greater Beijing, it's in the suburbs,
[14:03] and I actually farmed when I was a
[14:05] child.
[14:06] >> Mm.
[14:06] >> There was a urine pit at the entrance
[14:08] of our old house, and you had to carry
[14:10] the fertilizer—because you’d
[14:11] collect the urine yourself to use for
[14:13] farming—and I even accidentally
[14:14] killed the persimmon tree in front of
[14:16] my grandfather's house. Yeah, because I
[14:18] didn't know any better; I applied some
[14:20] fertilizer because I had a little bit
[14:21] of it myself.
[14:22] >> Yes, Shi Bo mentioned a lot about this.
[14:24] A very important part of farming is
[14:26] composting. The core of composting is
[14:27] transforming the fertilizer; otherwise,
[14:29] if you just put waste directly onto the
[14:31] plants, it will burn them to death.
[14:33] >> Right, that persimmon tree is quite
[14:35] large, and then
[14:36] >> I also burned a chili plant to death
[14:37] last year. Applied too much.
[14:39] >> Yes, so I feel that ever since I was
[14:41] very young—this is why I’m involved
[14:43] in agriculture now—I’ve had very
[14:45] deep feelings about farming. And those
[14:48] feelings are perhaps more based on the
[14:50] reality in China. Chinese farmers are
[14:53] truly very hardworking. I have farmed
[14:55] in China, especially on land in the
[14:57] north.
[14:59] >> This includes the hardships of the era
[15:01] in rural China; I have a very deep
[15:03] impression of that. Farming really is
[15:07] hard and bitter work.
[15:09] >> Yes, high input, very low output.
[15:11] >> Very, very low, and back then they were
[15:13] still collecting agricultural taxes. I
[15:15] planted a few cucumbers in my own yard
[15:17] and realized that a cucumber you buy
[15:20] casually at the market, which feels
[15:22] like something very cheap and ordinary,
[15:24] takes several months to harvest. From a
[15:27] seed, to a sprout, to climbing up the
[15:29] vine, it takes a very long time. I
[15:31] tried to grow tomatoes twice and
[15:33] couldn't get them to grow at all.
[15:35] It’s very difficult; I know it’s a
[15:37] very slow process. Very much so. And
[15:42] because the entire plant production
[15:44] process is slow—vegetables change
[15:46] every two, three, or four months—and
[15:49] for staple crops, it takes four, five,
[15:51] or six months, or even just one harvest
[15:54] a year in the North, I have deep
[15:56] memories of constantly worrying about
[15:58] various natural disasters or related
[16:00] issues during this process.
[16:05] >> It really is still extremely fragile.
[16:09] Before the introduction of these modern
[16:12] technologies into the entire process, I
[16:14] felt that rural China was relatively
[16:16] speaking quite impoverished; in a sense
[16:18] , the people were still very destitute.
[16:22] Yes.
[16:23] >> Just now, Engineer Zhang mentioned that
[16:25] you have also farmed and feel that the
[16:26] life of a farmer is difficult. You must
[16:28] have a special understanding of this
[16:30] hardship. You even cried while working
[16:32] in the U.S., right?
[16:35] >> It was an eight-hour workday, with only
[16:36] one hour for a meal in the middle, and
[16:38] we were working under the scorching sun
[16:40] , in wind and rain—you had to work
[16:42] through all those weather conditions.
[16:45] And every single day, my body was in
[16:48] pain. I found it quite strange, because
[16:51] even after working for half a year,
[16:53] right up until the time I was about to
[16:55] leave, I was still in pain—aching
[16:57] pain. The intensity can reach that
[17:00] level.
[17:01] >> Mmh. People on our own farm also
[17:05] discuss what is the best or most
[17:06] suitable working duration for a farmer.
[17:12] An ideal state might be, for example,
[17:14] three hours of manual labor, three
[17:16] hours of craft work, and perhaps two
[17:17] hours for study; but if you're working
[17:20] eight hours or even longer a day,
[17:21] it’s a tremendous challenge to the
[17:23] body. Yeah, does this frustration also
[17:28] include the fact that despite all that
[17:30] hard work, the yield wasn't that high?
[17:32] Was your farm relatively small, or how
[17:34] big was it?
[17:36] >> Uh, the farm I was at was indeed a
[17:38] vegetable farm. It grew mostly
[17:41] vegetables, but the yield was actually
[17:43] quite high; it’s not like what many
[17:45] people think, that just because you
[17:46] don't use pesticides, the yield must be
[17:48] very low. In fact, as long as you
[17:51] master the techniques and have good
[17:53] soil and good skills, you can achieve
[17:55] very high yields. I also visited some
[18:00] large-scale farms nearby—four or
[18:02] five-thousand-acre organic farms
[18:03] growing corn, wheat, and soybeans—and
[18:05] they can handle that work with just a
[18:07] single family farm.
[18:10] >> Oh, really? How many people does it
[18:12] take? One family.
[18:13] >> Just the husband and wife.
[18:15] >> Didn't they have nine kids? Not that
[18:17] many.
[18:17] >> That farm was managed by just one
[18:19] person.
[18:20] >> For organic farming, even for staple
[18:22] crops, they rely on mechanization.
[18:24] Right, it's not like the way we imagine
[18:26] farming.
[18:27] >> Actually, take the task of weeding, for
[18:29] example. When we grow vegetables,
[18:32] because there are so many varieties,
[18:34] you can't just use one type of machine
[18:36] to weed; but for corn or wheat, they
[18:38] don't use herbicides, so they can use
[18:40] mechanical weeding instead of just
[18:42] manual labor.
[18:45] >> So, for them, labor substitution is
[18:47] quite significant, whereas vegetable
[18:49] growing is a very labor-intensive
[18:51] endeavor. As I understand it, it's not
[18:56] that they don't use pesticides and
[18:58] fertilizers. They do, but they use
[19:01] organic pesticides and fertilizers.
[19:03] >> Right.
[19:04] >> They still spray things, but those are
[19:06] organic pesticides.
[19:08] >> Exactly, they don't use synthetic
[19:10] chemicals; for instance, organic
[19:12] pesticides are actually similar to our
[19:14] essential oils. For example, pyrethrin
[19:17] is extracted from chrysanthemums, which
[19:19] you can spray. We’re also currently
[19:23] making plant enzymes, both of which can
[19:25] act as a way to repel insects. Then
[19:28] there’s biological pest control. For
[19:31] instance, when growing strawberries,
[19:33] aphids can be a problem. You can
[19:36] release ladybugs by buying insect cards
[19:38] in advance, placing them in the
[19:40] greenhouse, and they turn into ladybugs
[19:42] that eat the aphids. Using these
[19:46] natural enemies,
[19:48] >> I’ve actually seen that before. We
[19:51] went to New Zealand to film, and we
[19:53] visited a Maori vegetable garden. He
[19:57] showed me his vegetables, explaining
[19:59] that for pest control, he would plant
[20:01] two rows of flowers—chrysanthemums or
[20:03] some other kind—next to the
[20:04] vegetables.
[20:06] >> Right. He called these "sacrificial
[20:08] plants." If they have an issue, he
[20:11] knows the crops are at risk. Or they
[20:13] have a scent that keeps pests away. He
[20:16] also sprays them, a bit like the
[20:18] essential oils you mentioned. He uses
[20:21] some kind of chrysanthemum, maybe,
[20:23] mixed with water to spray, and it
[20:25] actually seems to work.
[20:27] >> Generally, it's pyrethrin, extracted
[20:29] from chrysanthemums. In fact, many of
[20:31] our medicines are also extracted from
[20:33] biological sources.
[20:35] >> Even things like the mosquito repellent
[20:37] sprays used for children contain
[20:39] pyrethrin, right. I
[20:43] >> But I want to add that in terms of
[20:45] efficiency and overall results, it’s
[20:47] certainly not as effective as, say,
[20:49] chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
[20:52] Those are definitely more efficient.
[20:55] >> Right?
[20:56] >> On that, we might have a difference of
[20:57] opinion. I feel the concept of
[21:00] efficiency depends on the timeframe you
[21:01] look at. For example, if you look at a
[21:05] period of about 10 years, it might be
[21:07] more efficient. But this kind of
[21:10] production method causes damage to the
[21:12] soil and the environment, so in the
[21:13] long term, its efficiency is unknown.
[21:16] >> Hmm,
[21:18] >> Or perhaps it's actually less efficient
[21:21] , because for our soil, it takes 400
[21:23] years to form just one centimeter of
[21:25] topsoil.
[21:26] >> 400 years. Right. If you destroy that
[21:30] in just a few years, it might look like
[21:32] you’ve produced more, but the time
[21:34] required to recover it afterward is
[21:36] much longer.
[21:37] >> So that soil becomes unusable, right?
[21:40] It hardens or
[21:41] >> It can still be used, but it’s
[21:42] definitely not high-quality soil.
[21:44] >> Have you encountered farmers who have
[21:46] these problems?
[21:47] >> Yes, if you use chemical fertilizers
[21:49] improperly, especially chemical ones,
[21:51] it leads to soil compaction. But it’s
[21:54] not to say that the soil will be
[21:56] completely unusable; chemical
[21:57] fertilizers were one of the greatest
[21:59] inventions of the last century.
[22:02] >> Everyone agrees on that.
[22:04] >> But look, much of the work we do now is
[22:06] core-focused on using fertilizer
[22:08] rationally to reduce its usage. Right,
[22:12] I just heard you mention "appropriate
[22:14] amounts," but I don’t know if there
[22:16] really is such a thing. At that farm in
[22:19] the Netherlands, the owner really had
[22:21] such a deep connection with the soil;
[22:22] he would just reach his hand in...
[22:25] >> Scoop up a handful of soil and say, "
[22:26] Look at how many earthworms are in
[22:28] there." He said, "In this handful,
[22:29] there are five earthworms. Look at how
[22:32] good my soil is." That was something he
[22:34] was particularly proud of, but I still
[22:36] don’t know if chemical fertilizer can
[22:37] ever be used in "appropriate amounts."
[22:39] That is...
[22:40] >> It’s possible.
[22:41] >> Can there be a balance?
[22:42] >> And this balance is best achieved by
[22:44] the farmers themselves. Hmm.
[22:46] >> As a farmer, agriculture is my primary
[22:49] livelihood; it’s how I support my
[22:51] family. I think people can accept the
[22:54] hardship, but the key is that after all
[22:56] that hard work, I can't end up poor. At
[22:59] this point, as a farm owner or farmer,
[23:01] everyone makes their own choices. While
[23:05] these choices are largely influenced by
[23:07] culture and various other factors, in
[23:09] the real world, they are more often
[23:11] driven by economic interests—I need
[23:14] to make money. So the core issue is,
[23:17] how do we help them—since agriculture
[23:19] is actually very difficult, even in
[23:21] Europe and America, as Bob mentioned—
[23:23] how can they make money despite the
[23:25] hardship?
[23:26] >> In the end, it’s still about dealing
[23:28] with people. How do you overcome this
[23:30] human need to make a profit?
[23:32] >> This is perhaps, I think, an inevitable
[23:34] law of development; it’s a cycle. For
[23:38] instance, when we grow vegetables, over
[23:40] 90%of their nutrients come from
[23:42] photosynthesis. It doesn’t come from
[23:45] fertilizer. I think we aren't
[23:48] criticizing fertilizer, but rather that
[23:50] so often, as we go along, it’s easy
[23:52] to go overboard. Hmm.
[23:55] >> It’s that everyone focuses solely on
[23:57] fertilizer and forgets what our most
[23:58] fundamental assets are. In reality,
[24:01] what's more important is having good
[24:03] soil and a good process of
[24:04] photosynthesis. The nutrients in the
[24:07] soil come from the actions of the
[24:09] microorganisms within it,
[24:11] >> right? Microorganisms break down the
[24:14] nutrients in the soil, which are then
[24:16] absorbed through the plant's roots. But
[24:21] we often forget, and what we’re
[24:22] actually criticizing is this: it’s
[24:24] just like a human, right? A person's
[24:28] primary value of health actually comes
[24:30] from having a good routine, eating good
[24:32] things, healthy food, and having a good
[24:34] mindset.
[24:35] >> It’s about whether my fundamental
[24:36] physical health is good or not.
[24:37] >> Exactly. You can't just say you need to
[24:39] take some medicine to be healthy; that
[24:41] would be heading in the wrong direction
[24:43] . Mhm.
[24:44] >> Right, and as mentioned earlier, for
[24:46] plants, almost all their energy comes
[24:48] from photosynthesis—that’s beyond
[24:50] doubt—but the main factor limiting
[24:52] plant photosynthesis is a lack of
[24:54] nitrogen in the soil. This isn't just
[24:56] about how much organic matter is put in
[24:58] ; throughout history, mankind...
[25:00] >> Can plants not produce enough nitrogen
[25:01] on their own?
[25:02] >> They cannot, because organic nitrogen
[25:04] is very rare in nature; it can only be
[25:07] generated by lightning or through the
[25:09] root nodule bacteria of legumes. So no
[25:11] matter how you cycle it naturally, it
[25:13] remains in deficit; there is no doubt
[25:15] about that. But we can synthesize
[25:17] ammonia, which allows us to convert the
[25:19] abundant nitrogen in the air into
[25:21] organic nitrogen. This was the core of
[25:23] human food production in the past, what
[25:25] we call the Green Revolution. In the
[25:27] past, places like India, and even China
[25:29] in the 1980s when we were finally able
[25:31] to feed everyone, a core factor was the
[25:33] massive use of, as I mentioned, urea—
[25:35] urea is a part of synthesized ammonia.
[25:37] >> Can I ask a naive question: is urea a
[25:39] chemical fertilizer or an organic one?
[25:41] I really don't know.
[25:42] >> It's a chemical fertilizer, chemical
[25:44] fertilizer. I thought...
[25:45] >> The term was translated from Japanese.
[25:48] >> Actually, the core issue is obtaining
[25:50] organic nitrogen. Over the past period,
[25:51] because our country's industrial
[25:53] capacity is very strong—we are the
[25:54] strongest country in artificial
[25:56] fertilizer production—our industrial
[25:57] ability is very high. This has resulted
[25:59] in the price of nitrogen fertilizer
[26:00] being very low.
[26:01] >> Mhm.
[26:02] >> For farmers, their preference is that
[26:04] since it's cheap, they use as much as
[26:06] they can. But using too much leads to
[26:09] side effects—the side effect being
[26:11] soil compaction, as mentioned earlier,
[26:13] which makes the plant roots 'ability to
[26:15] absorb nutrients weaker instead. So, we
[26:19] should be using it more reasonably;
[26:21] what exactly is "reasonable"? Yes, I
[26:26] can enable soil transformation while
[26:28] also increasing plant yields, without
[26:30] the current overuse. Our country
[26:36] promotes "double reduction"—reducing
[26:38] the current use of fertilizers and
[26:40] pesticides—but this requires us to
[26:42] change farmers' choices. So, you need a
[26:48] way to show them that buying pesticides
[26:50] and fertilizers costs money. For
[26:54] example, in a project we did in
[26:56] Xinjiang, they had to use a pesticide
[26:58] to shed leaves so they could harvest
[27:00] cotton, and during this process...
[27:03] >> Actually, spraying it just once is
[27:05] enough. But people here think, "I'll
[27:08] play it safe, the chemicals are cheap
[27:10] anyway," so they spray twice. It costs
[27:13] 30 yuan once, and 60 yuan twice.
[27:15] However, they didn't have a good grasp
[27:17] of the timing for spraying before.
[27:19] Because it cannot be too hot, or the
[27:21] chemicals will evaporate, and it cannot
[27:23] be too cold, or the effectiveness is
[27:25] lost. Especially after spraying, it
[27:27] cannot rain; if it rains, it’s
[27:28] useless, because the leaves won't
[27:30] wither. This helps with machine
[27:32] harvesting. So, what are we promoting
[27:35] to farmers here? It is ensuring the
[27:38] first spray is applied at the right
[27:40] time to work effectively. If I spray
[27:41] once, I reduce the chemicals, and the
[27:43] impact on the environment and
[27:45] everything else is lessened. But the
[27:47] core question is, why would farmers
[27:49] make this choice? I saved you money,
[27:50] and after saving that money, you can
[27:52] still maintain your income.
[27:54] >> I think this is crucial: how do we
[27:56] empower farmers to make their own
[27:58] choices and let them take the lead?
[28:01] >> But it sounds like their mindset needs
[28:03] to be educated; they need to understand
[28:05] why they shouldn't spray twice and when
[28:06] to spray once. Actually, whether it's
[28:09] farmers, consumers, or public policy, I
[28:12] think they all play a very important
[28:14] role. I remember during my doctoral
[28:17] studies, we worked on a project called
[28:19] "The Real Cost of Nitrogen Fertilizer."
[28:22] In fact, the issue with soil across
[28:24] China is that it's not lacking nitrogen
[28:26] ; it actually has too much nitrogen and
[28:28] lacks carbon.
[28:29] >> Ah.
[28:30] >> Our soil lacks organic carbon.
[28:33] >> Right.
[28:33] >> Humus and such are what we call organic
[28:36] carbon.
[28:37] >> Yes, another point is that we can
[28:39] actually treat soil as a living
[28:41] organism, because the number of
[28:43] microorganisms in just a handful of
[28:45] soil exceeds the entire human
[28:46] population on Earth. Ah.
[28:50] >> So, as the teacher just mentioned, why
[28:52] does soil become compacted? It's not
[28:56] just because we use a lot of chemical
[28:58] fertilizers, but because these living
[29:00] things in the soil also need to eat. If
[29:03] you only feed it chemical fertilizer,
[29:05] it's like a person—if you don't eat
[29:07] real food and only take nutritional
[29:08] supplements, you certainly won't
[29:10] survive. The food that these living
[29:12] things in the soil eat is what we call
[29:14] organic fertilizer, or...
[29:15] >> Oh, so compaction happens because the
[29:17] microorganisms inside have died.
[29:18] Exactly, there's no life left. It only
[29:21] leaves behind...actually, there is
[29:23] something very valuable in the Chinese
[29:24] language. For example, in English, it's
[29:27] just "soil," right? But in Chinese, "
[29:29] soil"(tu) and "earth"(rang) are two
[29:31] different characters.
[29:32] >> Hmm. "
[29:34] >> Tu" is formed through the natural
[29:36] process of weathering, where rocks
[29:38] break down into soil. But "rang" refers
[29:42] specifically to the substance formed
[29:44] after human intervention; that's what
[29:46] makes it a phono-semantic compound. The
[29:51] original meaning of the character "rang
[29:53] " is a loose, fertile layer of soil
[29:55] suitable for sowing. The outer part is
[30:00] a phonetic component, indicating the
[30:02] field. In the middle, there is the
[30:05] character for soil. It represents mud
[30:10] mixed with many seeds, and the side
[30:13] part represents plants; it's loose,
[30:15] fertile soil suitable for planting. So,
[30:20] it's only after humans cultivate the
[30:22] land between heaven and earth,
[30:24] including the composting processes we
[30:26] mentioned earlier, that "rang" is
[30:28] finally formed. Therefore, in Chinese
[30:31] culture, the relationship between
[30:34] fertilizer and soil has been recognized
[30:36] since ancient times. It’s like this:
[30:40] at first, we have things like raw soil
[30:42] and chemical conversion. So, what is
[30:45] the core meaning of saying "soil is
[30:47] alive"? After a plant decays, its
[30:50] leaves and other parts contain a large
[30:52] amount of the nitrogen, phosphorus, and
[30:54] potassium we talked about, as well as
[30:56] carbon itself. Organic matter then
[30:59] breaks these down, turning them back
[31:01] into the nutrients needed for plant
[31:03] growth. Like the poem says, "The fallen
[31:06] flower is not a heartless thing, it
[31:08] turns into spring mud to protect the
[31:10] flowers." Yes, that's it.
[31:12] >> I hadn't finished my point earlier,
[31:13] regarding our research on the true cost
[31:15] of fertilizer at the time.
[31:18] >> We discovered that the massive use of
[31:20] nitrogen fertilizer is actually backed
[31:22] by heavy policy subsidies, including
[31:24] VAT subsidies for fertilizer production
[31:26] and significant subsidies during the
[31:28] transportation of fertilizer. Actually,
[31:32] this subsidy is why you mentioned the
[31:34] fertilizer is cheap; it's made
[31:36] affordable through these subsidies. If
[31:40] you want to change farmers 'heavy
[31:41] reliance on chemical fertilizers, you
[31:43] should shift the subsidies, like the
[31:45] ones for chemical fertilizers, to
[31:47] organic fertilizers instead. Right, and
[31:51] a new problem has emerged because
[31:53] large-scale livestock farms are
[31:54] creating manure that is causing
[31:56] pollution. On one hand, your land lacks
[32:02] fertilizer and organic matter, while on
[32:04] the other, large farms—like those for
[32:07] cows, chickens, and pigs—have nowhere
[32:09] to dispose of their manure. This is a
[32:15] problem they currently don't have a
[32:16] good technological solution for.
[32:20] >> Is this place an orchard? Why is this
[32:22] path full of weeds? You see, first of
[32:25] all, there is a huge variety of these
[32:28] weeds. There are some like this one.
[32:30] >> There's even a variety of weeds.
[32:32] >> There are many different species,
[32:34] including this dandelion we see all the
[32:36] time.
[32:36] >> Mhm.
[32:38] >> This is the common dandelion we see
[32:40] often.
[32:41] >> Actually, for these weeds, for example,
[32:43] let's try this.
[32:45] >> Mhm.
[32:45] >> You'll find that the soil underneath is
[32:47] still moist.
[32:48] >> Oh, right. First of all, it retains
[32:51] water. If it were exposed to the sun,
[32:53] it would evaporate directly, wouldn't
[32:55] it?
[32:57] >> Our orchard has many insects that need
[32:59] to lay eggs and reproduce. If it were
[33:01] completely bare, they would have
[33:03] nowhere to breed.
[33:04] >> But aren't there pests among these
[33:06] insects? You aren't providing a place
[33:07] for pests to lay eggs?
[33:09] >> In this ecosystem, there are no pests.
[33:12] Everyone has their own natural
[33:14] predators. Perhaps the label "pest" is
[33:17] just something humans defined.
[33:20] >> Something we have singled out.
[33:23] >> Also, when these weeds wither in winter
[33:25] or after we mow them, they all become
[33:27] green manure.
[33:29] >> That's humus, right?
[33:30] >> Yes, humus.
[33:32] >> This part hasn't turned into humus yet.
[33:35] >> But once it enters the soil, it becomes
[33:37] humus. Now, the soil's organic matter
[33:40] content has reached over 4%. For
[33:43] example, when we first arrived it was
[33:45] higher; if it reaches 4%to 5%, it's
[33:47] comparable to the quality of the black
[33:49] soil in Northeast China.
[33:50] >> Oh.
[33:51] >> Mhm.
[33:51] >> I see some little earthworms and
[33:53] centipedes crawling around.
[33:54] >> Yes, look, this is the waste left
[33:56] behind after earthworms crawl through
[33:58] and digest the soil.
[34:00] >> I was just about to ask whose this is.
[34:02] Yours is different, it doesn't seem to
[34:04] have any bad smell. Like the one you
[34:06] mentioned in that tree pit. It seems to
[34:09] be because it has been fermented, right
[34:11] ? Well.
[34:11] >> After maturing, it should smell
[34:13] fragrant.
[34:14] >> Fragrant.
[34:15] >> Yes, you want this worm casting. Smell
[34:18] it, there's absolutely no bad odor.
[34:20] >> It just smells like soil.
[34:22] >> The scent of soil; it’s actually the
[34:24] soil itself. It should have a large
[34:27] number of microorganisms, and these
[34:28] microbes digest these things; they are
[34:30] essentially food for the microbes. To
[34:33] put it simply, rather than saying we
[34:35] are fertilizing the soil, it’s more
[34:37] like we are feeding the soil. Feeding
[34:40] the life within the soil, so that once
[34:42] they are well-fed, the soil naturally
[34:44] becomes healthy. Then, the substances
[34:48] they secrete get dissolved when we
[34:50] water the plants. After dissolving,
[34:52] they are absorbed by the plant roots
[34:54] and become nutrients for the plants.
[34:55] >> Oh.
[34:56] >> This is their best nutrition, their
[34:58] fertilizer.
[34:59] >> Yes. Yes, actually, if you look at a
[35:03] fruit tree, its root system extends to
[35:05] the outermost circle of leaves and
[35:07] branches, so the roots are located here
[35:09] , and that's where we dig the pit. In
[35:13] autumn, before Beijing enters winter,
[35:15] we apply fertilizer once, dig a pit,
[35:17] fill it with our organic fertilizer,
[35:19] and then cover it up.
[35:20] >> Where does this fertilizer come from?
[35:22] It's manure, right?
[35:23] >> Yes, this is cow manure.
[35:25] >> Composted cow manure, from the dairy
[35:26] cows we raise ourselves. Oh, manure
[35:28] from your own dairy cows?
[35:29] >> Yes, yes, yes.
[35:31] >> And you bring it here to create a cycle
[35:32] .
[35:32] >> Yes.
[35:33] >> Look, Jun, hmm.
[35:35] >> It's over here. These are the two
[35:37] aunties who happen to be fertilizing
[35:38] right now.
[35:41] >> This cart of manure was just brought
[35:42] over from the dairy farm over there and
[35:44] then brought directly into our fields.
[35:47] >> That transportation distance is so
[35:48] short. It's just brought straight over.
[35:50] >> Yes. And look, it’s already fully
[35:52] composted; there’s no smell at all.
[35:55] So for work like this, how much
[35:56] manpower do you need to get it done?
[36:00] >> This orchard is about 80 mu in total,
[36:02] and we have about four full-time
[36:04] farmers working on it. You see, they
[36:09] have to do everything from weeding and
[36:11] fertilizing to pruning and bagging the
[36:13] fruit. So, for example, if this were a
[36:19] non-organic farm, would you need much
[36:21] less manpower?
[36:23] >> Then perhaps one person would be enough
[36:25] for a farm like this. Ah. Well, if I
[36:39] use organic fertilizer, in a sense,
[36:41] modern society currently cannot provide
[36:43] enough of it. So, for instance, growing
[36:45] vegetables or crops around urban areas
[36:47] is fine, but since we are concerned
[36:49] with staple foods, there's no way
[36:51] around it; the whole world uses
[36:53] chemical fertilizers. And I personally
[36:55] believe this is, well, almost the most
[36:57] important factor in allowing the human
[37:00] population to reach 6 billion today.
[37:02] >> What about you?
[37:03] >> Is this still a subject of debate? No,
[37:05] go ahead, go ahead.
[37:07] >> Go ahead. I just want to hear if you
[37:08] think we can grow staple foods without
[37:10] chemical fertilizers.
[37:10] >> I certainly believe it's possible,
[37:12] because we previously calculated that
[37:14] in China, human excreta combined with
[37:16] manure from our livestock could
[37:17] theoretically provide a 100%nitrogen
[37:19] replacement. But the problem now is—
[37:21] well, this is an idealized scenario—
[37:23] where exactly does the issue lie? It's
[37:26] that we haven't formed a localized,
[37:27] circular system for farming and animal
[37:29] husbandry. It’s a specific model, and
[37:31] furthermore, the production of chemical
[37:33] fertilizer itself is restricted by our
[37:35] era of petroleum-based agriculture;
[37:37] both fertilizer and pesticide
[37:39] production are highly dependent on oil.
[37:42] It depends on when you think our energy
[37:44] peak will be. If oil runs out, the
[37:48] production of all these things will be
[37:50] affected. Overall, the use of chemical
[37:53] fertilizers is just a very brief moment
[37:55] in human history.
[37:57] >> It’s roughly what we call the Green
[37:58] Revolution.
[37:59] >> The Green Revolution in Europe and the
[38:01] U.S. began in the 1930s, following the
[38:04] ability to synthesize ammonia. But the
[38:07] massive surge in the human population
[38:09] also began in that era. So, this is a
[38:12] topic being discussed globally as a
[38:14] matter for the future. If we can enter
[38:16] an ecological state where we are
[38:18] internally self-sustaining, we could do
[38:20] this properly. However, in our current
[38:24] reality, there is a huge economic
[38:26] contrast, a massive gap; compared to
[38:28] chemical products, the cost of that
[38:30] alternative is just too high. Therefore
[38:33] , on a large scale, whether in China,
[38:36] the U.S., or Europe, no one uses it.
[38:38] Right.
[38:41] >> But this Green Revolution may have had
[38:43] some effects in the U.S. and Europe,
[38:44] yet there is one region where it had no
[38:46] effect: Africa.
[38:49] >> Hmm.
[38:50] >> Because when it comes to using chemical
[38:52] fertilizer, anyone who has used it
[38:54] knows it requires water.
[38:56] >> Oh.
[38:56] >> If you are in a place without water,
[38:58] your chemical fertilizer is useless.
[39:00] >> So Africa is more ecological.
[39:02] >> Africa is a place where the Green
[39:03] Revolution failed. It lacks water; that
[39:06] is the core issue to solve. But it is
[39:09] not a complete failure. In places with
[39:12] water, like South Africa, and many
[39:14] parts of the west, fertilizer......has
[39:16] shown significant results. Yet, what
[39:20] Africa needs most is not just
[39:22] fertilizer; it's herbicides.
[39:25] >> Hmm.
[39:25] >> It's essentially about clearing
[39:27] everything else away to leave room only
[39:29] for the crops. Regarding the GMOs we
[39:31] mentioned, the core benefit isn't pest
[39:33] control—that's secondary. The real
[39:35] point of GMOs is to avoid the most
[39:38] grueling agricultural task: weeding.
[39:40] >> Oh.
[39:41] >> Once I’ve introduced the modification
[39:43] , I can spray herbicide. Then, only
[39:45] your target genetically modified crop
[39:47] survives, while everything else green
[39:49] is wiped out.
[39:50] >> Right, and then...
[39:51] >> But later, "superweeds" began to appear
[39:53] . Exactly.
[39:54] >> Nature always finds a way, and it
[39:56] adapts faster than we do.
[39:57] >> Right, so it's just like humanity using
[39:59] antibiotics—you have to decide
[40:00] whether you want them or not. Do we
[40:01] humans need antibiotics? Yes, we do.
[40:04] But antibiotics lead to superbugs.
[40:05] Still, we have to keep developing new
[40:07] antibiotics.
[40:08] >> But...
[40:09] >> Let me add one thing: Africa also faces
[40:11] the problem of its planting structure,
[40:13] a legacy from the colonial era. Hmm.
[40:17] >> Land that could be used for food crops
[40:19] is instead used for large-scale
[40:20] production of things like bananas and
[40:22] coffee, which are then exported
[40:24] entirely to Europe and the US. This
[40:26] earns foreign currency, which they then
[40:28] use to buy food on the international
[40:29] market. But when you buy food on the
[40:32] international market, the price is no
[40:34] longer determined by production costs,
[40:36] but by......the entire financial system
[40:38] . Ultimately, at the highest level,
[40:41] food is a financial commodity. Hmm, if
[40:43] we truly think organic agriculture is
[40:46] the ideal, I wonder if we can draw a
[40:48] comparison. It’s like how none of us
[40:51] expected electric cars to become so
[40:53] popular, to the point where many EU
[40:55] countries have set dates to ban
[40:57] gas-powered vehicles. Yet, oil
[41:00] development was a huge contribution to
[41:02] our society; we never imagined we’d
[41:04] evolve to the point where we’d go
[41:06] fully electric. It's entirely possible.
[41:14] For example, one thing we are working
[41:16] on is using an electric, slow-moving
[41:18] cart equipped with a laser that can zap
[41:20] weeds the moment they sprout. Just as
[41:25] you said, it brings about a fundamental
[41:27] change. On the other hand, a new issue
[41:32] has emerged in the last 20 years or so,
[41:34] which is food waste. An academic at the
[41:41] Chinese Academy of Engineering named
[41:43] Zhang Fusuo published a paper noting
[41:45] that even if we pour massive resources
[41:47] into seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides
[41:49] , there is only about a 10%room left
[41:51] for increased production. However, our
[41:56] waste is huge; the efficiency of our
[41:58] utilization throughout the process is
[42:01] very poor.
[42:01] >> Isn't there a movement to "clean your
[42:03] plate"? I don't mean that—I mean what
[42:05] you just mentioned, ordering a table
[42:06] full of food and only eating a few
[42:07] bites, which is indeed quite wasteful.
[42:09] >> I think the waste I'm talking about
[42:11] isn't just about cleaning your plate.
[42:14] For example, most of the vegetables you
[42:16] buy now are transported from very far
[42:18] away.
[42:19] >> Uh-huh.
[42:20] >> The transport process involves several
[42:22] stages: first is harvesting, then
[42:24] transportation, and finally getting it
[42:27] to market, where sorting is required.
[42:29] The vegetables we eat now look very
[42:31] good. But every sorting process means
[42:33] that for produce like vegetables and
[42:35] fruits, there is a 20-30%loss; every
[42:37] time you sort, you lose that much.
[42:39] >> So, it just gets thrown away?
[42:42] >> Yes, look at this obvious example:
[42:44] people often feel that the price of a
[42:46] phone might not even change in a year,
[42:48] but what is the one thing whose price
[42:50] changes daily? The most frequently
[42:53] changing prices aren't stocks, they're
[42:55] vegetables. The price of vegetables in
[42:57] the morning is different from the
[42:58] evening, and it changes depending on
[43:00] who picks through them.
[43:02] >> Or just look at our own experiences;
[43:04] for instance, when you go to the
[43:05] supermarket to pick up some vegetables.
[43:08] Or grab a melon—you see someone
[43:09] pressed a spot while picking it, and
[43:11] suddenly it's deemed a defective
[43:13] product and discarded, even though it
[43:15] went through so many steps to get there
[43:17] .
[43:20] >> Right, but is your philosophy that you
[43:22] don't rule out these new technologies,
[43:24] but fertilizers and pesticides should
[43:25] be completely avoided? Yes, in our
[43:30] organic farming, certain techniques are
[43:32] prohibited. The technology we advocate
[43:37] should actually be more in line with
[43:38] the needs of nature, what we call
[43:40] harmony between humanity and nature.
[43:45] For instance, look at us now; I also
[43:47] have greenhouses on our farm. These
[43:54] greenhouses allow us to have fresh
[43:55] vegetables to eat in Beijing even
[43:57] during the winter, and at the same time
[43:59] , these facilities help us prevent
[44:00] pests more effectively through physical
[44:02] means. It's unlike the summer in
[44:09] Beijing, where you can't grow almost
[44:11] any leafy greens outdoors because of
[44:13] the high heat and humidity; for example
[44:15] , tomatoes will all crack as soon as it
[44:17] rains. But by using these methods that
[44:22] integrate technology, we can actually
[44:24] achieve both healthiness and high
[44:26] productivity. Moreover, it also
[44:29] provides a lot of replenishment
[44:31] throughout the different seasons. But
[44:34] is this only suitable for relatively
[44:36] small-scale operations? For example,
[44:38] regarding what Dr. Zhang mentioned
[44:40] about past agricultural production
[44:42] methods, they are actually very fragile
[44:44] . What if there is a pest infestation?
[44:46] For instance, someone told me about the
[44:48] fall armyworm the other day.
[44:51] >> They said it's very aggressive and that
[44:53] you can't get rid of it without
[44:54] pesticides. Are there risks that we
[44:57] cannot defend against using this method
[44:58] ?
[44:59] >> Actually, from the principles of
[45:01] ecology, the most fragile ecosystem is
[45:03] the one that is the most monolithic;
[45:05] the simpler it is, the more fragile it
[45:07] becomes.
[45:08] >> Hmm.
[45:09] >> If our entire ecosystem is diverse, for
[45:12] example, this insect eats that insect,
[45:14] it creates balance. On our farm, we've
[45:19] found that for pests like aphids, it's
[45:21] not just ladybugs that eat them; there
[45:23] are also lacewings and many other
[45:25] natural predators, which form a dynamic
[45:27] balance within the ecosystem. But once
[45:33] you start using pesticides heavily in
[45:35] this ecosystem, you don't just kill the
[45:37] pests; you kill their natural predators
[45:39] , and you even kill the bees that
[45:41] pollinate the crops. At this point,
[45:45] humans are still involved, and
[45:47] sometimes the role humans play is, I
[45:49] feel, quite unwise. You kill these
[45:53] insects, then you artificially spray
[45:55] crops, try to get them pollinated, and
[45:57] do the insects' work for them. It’s
[46:00] actually unnecessary. More importantly,
[46:03] we should maintain a dynamic balance in
[46:05] the ecosystem. On our own farm, we
[46:09] plant one or two hundred varieties of
[46:11] vegetables a year. You might have a
[46:14] certain vegetable that gets infested
[46:15] with bugs this year, leading to a
[46:17] significant yield reduction, but when
[46:19] you practice diversified planting, you
[46:21] won’t have a single type of bug
[46:22] eating all 100 of your vegetables.
[46:25] There’s no such thing as that kind of
[46:26] bug. Right, but this is more like how
[46:29] they grow vegetables and fruit, which
[46:31] is fine, but for China's 2 billion mu
[46:33] of farmland, the vast majority is still
[46:35] used for grain.
[46:36] >> Mm, it's the staple food.
[46:37] >> Staple food. Because we must ensure—
[46:40] as the General Secretary said—that we
[46:42] hold our rice bowls firmly in our own
[46:44] hands. There's no other way; we must
[46:47] ensure that the vast majority of
[46:48] farmland is used for grain, and the
[46:50] choices for grains are limited. It’s
[46:53] corn, rice, and wheat. Isn’t there
[46:55] corn here too?
[46:56] >> Yes, yes, it is, it is. But for example
[46:59] , an ecosystem for large-scale
[47:01] agriculture is indeed quite fragile
[47:03] because its variety is quite singular.
[47:06] Actually, this is a choice made by us
[47:08] humans; it is a human choice, not a
[47:11] natural one. If you go into nature, in
[47:13] any natural environment, you almost
[47:15] never see only one thing in a single
[47:17] location. Mm.
[47:18] >> Right? Whether you go to a grassland or
[47:20] anywhere else, you won’t see just a
[47:21] single species. The more diverse an
[47:23] ecosystem is, and the more complex its
[47:24] connections are, the more stable it
[47:26] becomes. However, for us humans, the
[47:28] core issue is the first one we need to
[47:30] solve. We humans need to survive, so we
[47:32] must plant the highest-yielding crops.
[47:35] So that’s why we ended up with only
[47:36] these few things? These types of staple
[47:39] grains are the highest yielding. Mm.
[47:41] >> Corn, wheat, rice, including potatoes.
[47:43] Now our country basically defines these
[47:45] as the four staple foods.
[47:47] >> Right, they are all being grown.
[47:48] >> Right, they are all being grown.
[47:50] >> These potatoes look pretty good, but...
[47:53] >> In human history, planting potatoes has
[47:55] also led to problems; the Potato Famine
[47:57] was caused by this exact thing.
[47:58] >> You mean in Ireland, right?
[47:59] >> Ah, yes. The whole of Ireland was
[48:02] basically growing only potatoes. At
[48:04] that time, the potatoes were struck by
[48:06] a "potato cancer," which is late blight
[48:08] , leading to a total crop failure.
[48:10] After the failure, the people had
[48:12] almost nothing to eat because they only
[48:13] had that one crop, which is why, in the
[48:15] end, many Irish people immigrated to
[48:17] the United States. This is the
[48:19] fragility of our food supply. But
[48:21] >> I think there is another issue, which
[48:23] happens to confirm a point.
[48:25] >> That is, it’s actually due to
[48:27] monoculture. That is the problem, but
[48:29] the point is that with so many people,
[48:31] if we don't use monoculture, how can I
[48:33] guarantee the yield? So, in your
[48:36] vegetable patch, how do you prevent
[48:38] pests with potatoes and corn?
[48:41] >> Actually, our country is now promoting
[48:43] a method where corn and soybeans can be
[48:45] intercropped. It is a piece of Chinese
[48:49] agricultural wisdom that you can farm
[48:51] on a large scale while also
[48:52] implementing models that combine scale
[48:54] with intercropping and rotation. Mm.
[48:59] >> It relatively allows us to utilize some
[49:01] ecological values as well.
[49:11] >> We’ve actually found that in my
[49:12] experience with organic farming, it’s
[49:14] easier to control pests and diseases
[49:16] for grain crops like corn—for
[49:18] instance, we also grow some, and we
[49:20] have a rice base in Heilongjiang—and
[49:22] wheat. Vegetables are actually more
[49:31] difficult to manage and harder to grow
[49:33] in organic farming; vegetables and
[49:35] fruits have a higher degree of
[49:36] difficulty. As for staple grains, we
[49:41] can basically achieve yields very close
[49:43] to conventional levels.
[49:45] >> Mm.
[49:46] >> Agriculture itself is actually an
[49:48] anti-ecological process, because the
[49:50] ecological world is a process of
[49:52] diversity. The reason we humans
[49:54] developed agriculture is to keep things
[49:56] from growing the way they do in nature;
[49:58] it’s to satisfy our desires, our
[50:00] hunger, and to support more people,
[50:02] right? Our lives are the same;
[50:04] everything is anti-nature, right?
[50:06] Taking a perfectly good pasture and
[50:08] fencing it off, right? Something like
[50:09] that.
[50:10] >> Humans are also part of the ecological
[50:11] system.
[50:12] >> Right, right. So the core issue here is
[50:14] that I think the first thing to
[50:15] consider is always the human
[50:17] perspective. We consider ecology for
[50:19] the sake of human well-being. We don't
[50:21] consider ecology to suffer; it's not
[50:23] about people living in misery while the
[50:25] environment thrives. It’s about how
[50:27] to make ecology and humanity develop
[50:29] harmoniously, with the ultimate goal
[50:31] being for the good of humanity. For the
[50:34] good of humanity not just in the short
[50:35] term, but also in the medium and long
[50:37] term.
[50:38] >> I believe the wisdom we Chinese have
[50:40] held for thousands of years is the
[50:42] unity of nature and man, meaning humans
[50:44] can coexist harmoniously within this
[50:45] natural world. So, so, I think we can
[50:48] use this Chinese wisdom, we can use
[50:50] ecologically intensive ecological
[50:52] wisdom to solve the problem of
[50:54] increasing agricultural production now.
[50:58] Because at that time, we saw a book
[51:00] called "Chinese Traditional Pesticides,
[51:02] " which shows that the wisdom of our
[51:04] Chinese people, I think, the ecological
[51:06] wisdom, can still be further explored.
[51:08] For example, we don't use chemical
[51:10] pesticides, but that doesn't mean we
[51:12] don't use any pesticides; so what are
[51:14] our traditional pesticides? That book
[51:15] recorded many traditional Chinese
[51:17] medicine-based defenses. We can
[51:20] completely have another system to
[51:22] replace the existing chemical-based one
[51:24] , or forms that are more polluting to
[51:26] the environment, including our soil
[51:27] fertility, right? I think if we can
[51:32] unleash the wisdom of the common people
[51:34] , the potential is actually huge.
[51:38] >> Hmm.
[51:38] >> But the costs they have to pay are
[51:40] higher.
[51:40] >> Is that so?
[51:41] >> That is why farmers do not choose
[51:43] organic farming.
[51:44] >> Because if I'm selling the final
[51:46] product, say grain, and my costs are
[51:48] higher because I used organic methods,
[51:50] then I will choose to use non-organic
[51:52] methods to grow it.
[51:55] >> Right, now, because the main cost of
[51:57] planting organic crops is actually,
[51:59] where is it? Look, for example, as we
[52:03] just said about using chemical
[52:05] fertilizer, you only need a few dozen
[52:07] pounds per mu, but if you use organic
[52:09] fertilizer per mu...In terms of growing
[52:11] vegetables, on average, we need two
[52:13] tons of organic fertilizer per mu, from
[52:15] composting it to applying it to the
[52:17] fields. You can imagine this process;
[52:21] the labor costs are all added up.
[52:24] >> So this is the process of using
[52:26] fertilizer, which makes the cost high.
[52:28] Another thing is, as just mentioned,
[52:30] you don't use herbicides, so you have
[52:32] to use manual or mechanical weeding. In
[52:34] this case, suitable machinery is very
[52:36] limited, especially for vegetables. So,
[52:38] currently, for example with vegetables,
[52:40] most of us still rely on manual weeding
[52:42] . And also in pest control, the main
[52:45] investment in ecological agriculture is
[52:47] actually in disease prevention. It
[52:50] means you shouldn't wait until the pest
[52:52] infestation has already formed to use
[52:54] some medicine; rather, you should
[52:56] improve the soil, manage the plants
[52:58] well, and control the temperature and
[52:59] humidity. Take our greenhouses, for
[53:02] example. They aren't like some places
[53:05] where you enter and find high heat and
[53:07] humidity, which just makes the plants
[53:09] prone to getting sick. Then you have to
[53:12] use pesticides to deal with it. But in
[53:15] our greenhouses, we must control the
[53:16] temperature and humidity to be optimal
[53:18] for plant growth, so you prevent them
[53:20] from getting sick in the first place.
[53:23] >> Mm.
[53:23] >> So, their entire approach and point of
[53:25] entry for thinking about this is
[53:27] different. Look, hey. What's this? This
[53:30] ...
[53:31] >> A mantis.
[53:32] >> Oh, a mantis. Right, I've already seen
[53:34] a few. The mantis is an
[53:36] environment-sensitive insect. If you
[53:38] use pesticides frequently, it wouldn't
[53:40] exist on this farm. It's particularly
[53:43] sensitive to its environment.
[53:45] >> Why are these leaves yellow?
[53:47] >> That's fine. It might be—actually,
[53:49] you haven't noticed, we use a "lowering
[53:51] " planting method. The stem at the
[53:53] bottom is already very long.
[53:55] >> Mm.
[53:56] >> We keep harvesting. And keep lowering
[53:58] it down. Actually, this luffa could be
[54:02] considered 70 years old.
[54:05] >> Ah.
[54:07] >> It’s reaching the end of its life
[54:09] cycle.
[54:10] >> Oh.
[54:10] >> Look, it has already produced so many
[54:12] melons down here.
[54:13] >> That's what it produced in the past.
[54:15] >> Right, we lower it and harvest as we go
[54:17] , which ensures the height is
[54:18] convenient for people to pick the
[54:20] melons.
[54:21] >> But in reality, it has already produced
[54:24] quite a lot.
[54:25] >> Wow, this one is huge. Oh my, this
[54:28] feels like that "Havoc in Heaven"[
[54:29] Monkey King] vibe.
[54:31] >> The feeling of a harvest.
[54:32] >> Right, the peach orchard.
[54:34] >> Look, a peach like this can't be sold.
[54:37] You see these pockmarks? It's actually
[54:40] a type of bug called a stink bug.
[54:43] >> It bites the peach and then sucks the
[54:45] juice from inside.
[54:46] >> Mm.
[54:47] >> It turns out like this, and it’s very
[54:49] difficult to sell this peach as a
[54:51] commercial product.
[54:52] >> We can only eat these ourselves. Does
[54:55] this affect your yield? Do you
[54:57] encounter this often?
[54:58] >> Yes. This year the overall yield is
[55:00] actually quite good. Two years ago it
[55:03] was birds, because, in reality, birds
[55:05] and bugs know best what tastes good.
[55:08] Right.
[55:09] >> As soon as a peach ripens or looks good
[55:11] , they will be the first to eat it. Two
[55:13] years ago, birds ate a lot of peaches.
[55:18] But these past two years, we’ve used
[55:20] methods like bagging, manual bird
[55:21] scaring, playing music, or setting up
[55:23] scarecrows to deter them. These white
[55:28] spots on the leaves, this is whitefly.
[55:31] You've mentioned two types of pests now
[55:33] ; just now you said—that is your...
[55:36] >> Insects.
[55:37] >> Right, was that "stink bug" the small
[55:39] flying insect you mentioned?
[55:41] >> Ladybug.
[55:42] >> The stink bug is what we call a ladybug
[55:44] .
[55:45] >> Doesn't that harm your production?
[55:49] >> Actually, for the peaches, the damage
[55:51] isn't very significant now; these
[55:53] peaches are fully grown. We're about to
[55:57] enter the harvest season, so they don't
[55:58] need much management. There's also
[56:01] something called aphids, which
[56:02] specifically suck on the buds, like the
[56:04] tender shoots that have just sprouted.
[56:07] >> Aphids love to suck the juice from
[56:09] those tender buds, and that attracts
[56:11] ants. But look, where aphids appear on
[56:14] our farm, their natural predators, like
[56:17] ladybugs and lacewings, also show up.
[56:20] Oh.
[56:21] >> Because ladybugs will eat the aphids,
[56:23] and lacewings will too, so it naturally
[56:25] forms a cycle.
[56:27] >> Do ladybugs and lacewings affect the
[56:29] peach tree itself?
[56:30] >> Right, they won't eat the peaches.
[56:32] >> Actually, orchards mainly deal with
[56:34] just a few types of bugs, like aphids
[56:36] and whiteflies. And also, during the
[56:38] spring and autumn, we use something
[56:40] called lime sulfur.
[56:42] >> Lime sulfur?
[56:44] >> Yes, lime sulfur is just sulfur. With
[56:48] water...Is that not poisonous?
[56:51] >> No, it's a physical form.
[56:53] >> Sulfur exists in nature, doesn't it?
[56:57] >> Then we turn it into a liquid and spray
[56:59] it directly onto our fruit trees.
[57:03] >> The yield is actually really good.
[57:06] >> We can hold the Peach Banquet now. Let
[57:08] me try it.
[57:09] >> Growing here, look at how this peach is
[57:11] hanging.
[57:11] >> Actually, just hold the branch with one
[57:13] hand and the peach with the other, then
[57:15] just give it a little twist. Right,
[57:17] follow the natural tension. Oh, hey, it
[57:20] came off.
[57:21] >> Right.
[57:21] >> I didn't break the branch, did I?
[57:24] >> Oh, I did a lot...
[57:26] >> It's my first time, the first time in
[57:27] my life picking a peach.
[57:29] >> Can this be sold or not?
[57:31] >> This isn't great for selling, so I'll
[57:33] just eat it. It's for you. Come on,
[57:37] let's go see the chickens.
[57:40] >> The chickens here are really quite
[57:42] happy. Look, this chicken is even
[57:45] wearing boots!
