An Overview Of Our Solution
Lvlong is a 20-year- old farm located at Miyun, Beijing, China, which represented a unique example of sustainable agriculture development in China. Its owner, Mr. Wang Qingsong started this farm originally because he needed to feed his big family in early 1990s. LvLong Farm is consisted of three sections, which occupied 66 hectare, 13.3 hectare and 200 hectare. Up to now, the farm has been maintained environmentally friendly and many goals such as self-sufficiency, sustainable farming and local species protection have been well achieved by making good use of the forests, reservoirs and farming land. There are 300 pigs, tens of cows, hundreds of sheep, some donkeys and poultry in the farm.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Suburban
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Asia
General Information
Organization type
individual
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Population impacted
More than 50 families. Tens of thousands of people
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
300 hectares
Production quantity
Grain: 100,000 kg total, paddy 150 kg / mu, wheat: 150 kg / mu, corn: 250 kg / mu. Pig 300, cattle 50 head, goat 200+
People employed
20-30 contact and 10 permanent
Solution
Describe your solution
Our advantage is the comprehensive use of the mountain, woodland and pond, which has become an independent self-maintained system. In order to protect the local plants, the rate of pig to plant is strictly regulated. Averagely, each pig is allowed to move within 1-acre area. Animal feces are composted to fertilizer and supply soil nutrients. The positive impact of fertile soil is abundance yield of wild mushroom. Plus, more diverse insect species can also be seen.
The farm functioned by following the role of Chinese traditional farming knowledge and modern technique, where all natural resources have been well adopted. Before the farm was created, this area of land has been abandoned for 50 years because people who used to live there cannot survive under flooding disaster. Mr. Wang Qingsong came here and transferred this disadvantage into advantage, therefore, flooded land became fertile farming land.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
Machines are rarely used but human and cattle are main force. Crop, meat and vegetable production has been fully sustainable.
For plant, those original, non-hybrid, non-transgenic seeds are found. Some seeds are preserved as well.
2, For animal, reliable animal breeding source still exist. But any introduced animal species need to be isolated and observed for six months until their physical condition is stable.
The challenges we encountered are:
1, Lack of funding. Insufficient funds prohibited the development of site selection and staffing
2, Lack of experienced farm worker. Most employees in the farm are over 55 years old.
Solutions:
1, Putting more efforts in promotion, influence expansion for more social resources.
2, Training young college students to work in agricultural field.
3, Applying for financial assistance.
External connections
We actively participate in farmers’ market and communicated with customers and other farmers. The pig species is supplied from Chinese government. We also explore local breeding source from near farms.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
The biggest challenge comes from the conflict with the surrounding environment. More specifically, how to reduce the negative impact (pesticides and fertilizers). Due to different management and production methods, there is great conflict and contradictory between Lvlong farm and other neighbor farms. Also, Lvlong farm cannot cooperate with other farms. For example, it become difficult to find appropriate pig species to mate with Lvlong pigs because very few farm raised pips following the same standard as Lvlong.
No animal epidemic prevention: by controlling the source of animals and seeds, it is unnecessary to apply animal epidemic control or medical control.
No chemical control: very little chemical fertilizer and pesticide were applied in the framing system. Moreover, very little life consumption products were sourced out of the mountain, except salt and tea.
Seed and animal breeding: some local cattle and sheep species are almost extinct due to the low economic profits.
Describe the context in which you are operating
In early 90s, Mr. Wang Qingsong moved to Beijing suburban and bought a piece of mountain land. At that age, environmental issue and food security are not a well-known issue yet. Organic farming is rarely popular either. However, currently, more and more Chinese people have realized that food quality has a great influence on their health and life quality. Therefore, pursuing secured food source became a critical thing.
Fifty years ago, Lvlong Farm was an abandoned village as a result of floods. After 30 years, this area is transforming back to forests. When Mr. Wang Qingsong came here, he explored this land build house. He has been insisted applying sustainable agriculture practice and limiting any pollution that happen.
The water is collected from precipitation, and then used for irrigation, fish and drinking. The farm is sustainable and reproducible. Because the mountain area is large, pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides are rarely used. Animal epidemic prevention is prohibited, there are abundant variety of insects, fungi, plants species. Without any epidemic prevention and drug use, the mortality of animals is low.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
Chinese government has invested large amount of money to protect Miyun Reservoir (the only drinking water source in Beijing). The farm is located near the upstream of Miyun Reservoir, so waste water release is strictly limited. Organic buildings were built by using solar power, which can keep room warm without using electrical heating system. The circulation system, little garbage was produced. If there are out-sourced garbage, they will be classified and recycled.
We are convinced that a right start is always better than correction. So, At the beginning of the construction of the farm, many efforts have been put to reduce environmental damage. After 20 years of efforts, the mountain environment is getting better. Many wild species, such as badger, roe deer, wild boar, hare and eagle can be seen more often.
The farm functioned by following the role of Chinese traditional farming knowledge and modern technique, where all natural resources have been well adopted. Before the farm was created, this area of land has been abandoned for 50 years because people who used to live there cannot survive under flooding disaster. Mr. Wang Qingsong came here and transferred this disadvantage into advantage, therefore, flooded land became fertile farming land.
Language(s)
Chinese
Water
The main water source is rainfall water. A small dam was built to improve water storage function. Even though rainfall water pollution is hard to be avoided, some of the water can be purified by the mountain.
Food Security/Nutrition
Chemical products, such as fertilizer, pesticides, washing powder, detergent and soap have never been used. Coal and natural gas are rarely used for cooking but some local materials, such as straw and trees become alternatives.
Economic/Sustainable Development
The main mountain area is 200 hectares, which is isolated, closed management, self-contained, cattle and sheep pigs and so on. Most of the arable land has been protected for 20 years, therefore, the soil structure, beneficial insect variety, fungi, animals and plants has become a natural, balanced, recycling ecological system. Some human intervene were applied when it is required. For example, the amount of pheasant has increased from 50 to 1, 000 in the past 20 years. So about 200 pheasants wer
Climate
Near the Miyun Reservoir, there is little fertilizer and pesticides applied in this region. Natural disasters and bad weather (hail, heavy rain, etc.) conditions are rare too. In terms of cultivation and breeding, appropriate interval space was used. For example, millet is planted in arid area while rice was planted in humid area.
Sustainability
Funding source are; sales and donation (50/50)
Return on investment
At present, the farm is still in development stage and some infrastructure projects need to be completed. The annual funding is approximately $250,000 dollars. In three years, it is expected that the income and expenditure can be balanced.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
It would be difficult to copy this model in other places because of those reasons:
1) extinct animal species is rare such as cattle, goats;
2) Similar geographic and environmental conditions cannot be easily copied
3) Large cost is a big barrier to copy this model as well. It costs approximately $10, 000, 000 US dollar at the first stage of Lvlong Farm development. It is estimated that $ 100 million US dollar was needed to copy one Lvlong farm.
The farm successfully makes full use of animals, plants and landscapes. It also creates an efficient approach to preserve those resource. This is completely different from the current industrial farming system and it is a renovated agricultural civilization.
We hope that we can get a chance to cooperate with international colleagues and explore the value of this model.