Namo is a village in Fengshan County, Guangxi Province, inhabited by the Zhuang ethnic minority. PCD has been encouraging the villagers of Namo to conserve seeds of local heirloom crops to protect the biodiversity of their fields and for food security. On a sunny day in autumn last year (2016) and in the midst of lush green fields, Namo villagers celebrated the Bianmijie (a festival held when the rice crops haven’t finished growing, during which villagers use the time waiting to collect the harvest to conduct celebrations and courtship activities). (Angus Lam, PCD)
PCD has been supporting Liufang Village in Liping County, Guizhou Province to revive traditional ways of farming and to protect local ecology and culture, which includes the traditional ecological practice of duck-fish-rice farming. After a few years of such practices, villagers now see more life in the field. They are particularly happy to hear frogs croak again in spring and summer. Frogs are the guardians of crops because they eat pests.(Pan Yong-rong, PCD)
Yunnan farmer old Xiong is a long-term partner of PCD’s ecological agriculture projects. He generously shares with fellow farmers his knowledge and skills of ecological agriculture. He grows a variety of nuts, fruits and vegetables. (The Authority of Tengchong Management Division for the Gaoligongshan Nature Reserve in Yunnan)
PCD supports farmers to grow traditional crops and organises an exchange activity on seeds, in which farmers from Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Guangxi gather to introduce their traditional crops seeds and exchange on knowledge of growing these crops. (Angus Lam/PCD)
During the exchange activity, a farmer from Nandan County of Guangxi Province shows a kind of traditional sticky rice – broom sticky rice. (Angus Lam/PCD)
A farmer from Liufang Village of Liping County from Guizhou Province is harvesting a traditional crop of sticky rice. (Zhan Wei/PCD)
Beijing Organic Farmers Market, a PCD partner, arranges farm visits for consumers to check out how crops are grown ecologically. (Beijing Organic Farmers Market)
A farmer practices ecological farming through raising ducks in the paddy fields. (Fengshan Foreign Investment Poverty Alleviation Office)
A farmer adopts natural farming methods to grow fruit trees. She is cutting weeds which are used to cover the field. (Fengshan Foreign Investment Poverty Alleviation Office)
PCD supports the education activities of urban farming in Beijing where children and adults are ploughing in the farm in spring. (Little Donkey Farm)
PCD supports the education activities of urban farming in Beijing. Urban farmers delight in their bumper harvest. (Little Donkey Farm)
Campus farming. (Zhuang Qiang, Guiding teacher of the Roots and Shoots Programme at the Experimental School affiliated with the Capital Normal University)
A group of students rejoice at their harvest of vegetables in the campus where they practice farming. (Zhou Chaoyi, Guiding teacher of the Roots and Shoots Programme at the Yuanyang Branch of Beijing Jingshan School)
With PCD's support to a survey, it is found that traditional methods in keeping Chinese honeybees is the lifeline for the ecological restoration of the soil-denuded areas of Guizhou. A beekeeper hangs a traditional wooden beehive outside his house and honeybees are kept inside it. (He Chengwen)
With PCD's support to a survey, it is found that traditional methods in keeping Chinese honeybees is the lifeline for the ecological restoration of the soil-denuded areas of Guizhou. One traditional method for beekeeping there is to use beehives made from tree trunks to catch wild bees. (He Chengwen)
During the three days from 17 to 19 October 2013, 120 CSA (Community-supported Agriculture) practitioners from Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong gather at the CSA Seminar to share their experience. (PCD)
On the last day for the CSA (community supported agriculture) Seminar in 2013, participants sit on the lawn in bright sunshine to reflect on what they have learnt. (PCD)
Eco-agriculture in the highland: Golden wheat ready for harvest in July in Yunnan.
Food tasting event for public to promote eco-agriculture in Pingshan County, Sichuan.
Farmers visited organic pomelo growing farm in a village in Guangxi. (Longvillage Health Center)
In Guangxi, PCD supports the conservation of local rice species and the introduction of new species, so as to diversify the species of rice.
Villagers in Pingshan County, Sichuan Province start eco-farming after taken some training from PCD staff
PCD’s partner, He Chu Ren Training Centre in Chongqing, provides ecological agriculture training to young interns who are now making water management system for farmland.
Rice species improvement experiment in Nandan County, Guangxi Province. (Xu Xiaoling / PCD Staff specialised in Nandan programme collaborated with Guanxi Museum of Nationalities)
PCD supports balcony farming in four residential communities in Beijing. Members of one community start turning the public space in their residential community into a rooftop garden. (Center for Social Invention)
Community members in Beijing tending vegetables in their own pots as well as those grown in public space of the roof-top garden. (Center for Social Invention)
A full grown roof-top garden in summer in a Beijing community. (Center for Social Invention)
Harvesting time, sharing time. Some of the harvests are shared with 'home-alone' elderly residents. (Center for Social Invention)
The rural returnee as well as PCD’s CSA intern Yao Huifeng chooses to return to his home village to engage in farming and community supported agriculture (CSA). (Yao Huifeng)
The rural returnee as well as PCD’s CSA intern Yao Huifeng commits himself to ecological agriculture in which he raises ducks in his paddy field. (Yao Huifeng)
Women villagers singing folk songs while harvesting crop of preserved variety in Liping, Guizhou.
Rural youths returning home is advocated in all PCD youth development programme as a way to rebuild vitality in rural China. (Chen Ping-hsien from Taiwan Rural Front)