BBC – Wealthy Chinese begin farming after food-safety scares

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Fears about food safety have prompted some young Chinese professionals to try growing their own

By Martin Patience
BBC News, Beijing
Aug 3, 2011

Excerpt:

Juggling their iPhones with spades, a group of young professionals are getting their hands dirty – digging vegetables.

During the week, they are teachers, PR consultants, and computer programmers. But at the weekend, these city slickers return to the soil.

“We’re worried about food safety,” says He Liying, explaining why they grow vegetables.

They toil under the summer sun – not always efficiently – at a co-operative farm called Little Donkey on the outskirts of Beijing. It has about 700 fee-paying members.

It is one of dozens of farms which have cropped up across the country catering for China’s middle classes, which are increasingly concerned about food safety.

Jiang Yan Shi says 600 of his melons “exploded” – a quarter of his crop.

According to state media, the number of consumer complaints over the issue is rising.

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