Video: Hidden Farms of China

A Deep Dive into Intra-Urban Small-Scale Agriculture in Chengdu

As you may know, February’s theme is Urban Agriculture: a topic which gets little coverage in mainstream media, despite feeding hundreds of millions across China and around the world. It’s essential to conversations around integrating our food systems into an increasingly urbanised world.

In China, 都市农业dūshìnóngyè (urban agriculture) is a flexible term, covering everything from intensive, climate-controlled ‘plant factories’ to peri-urban smallholdings at the fringes of urban administrative zones.

Taking to the city streets on our bikes, we set out in search of ‘Intra-Urban Small-Scale Agriculture:’ the non-commercial utilisation of unused land for food. Follow us as we take a deep dive into urban farming in Chengdu, by cycling to all of the 菜地 càidì (vegetable plots) we can find within a 5km radius of our home.

We hope you enjoy this video; making it was a fascinating experience. Scratching off one layer of Chéngdū’s modernity connected us to its agricultural past, and spoke to something fundamental about cities; how they shape us and what they do to our relationship with the living world.

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