Nourishing sense of community
As Wuhan underwent lockdown, UN Food Hero fought to ensure the city would be fed
On Oct 16, World Food Day, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations revealed 26 Food Heroes, who, no matter what the circumstances, continue to provide food to their communities and beyond — helping to grow, nourish and sustain our world.
Li Zhifang, 44, marketing manager of Wuhan Qiangxin Vegetable Production and Marketing Cooperative, was the only hero from China.
Li learned about the news on the afternoon of Oct 15 from his niece who is majoring in English in college.
“I was on a business trip in Changyang, Hubei province, when she called me and translated the news to me. I was thrilled. How could the United Nations know my story? I didn’t even know where the United Nations is located,” he recalled.
A Wuhan local, Li used to do quality control on honey produced in his village. He has also cultivated crayfish and worked in the construction industry.
In 2012, he went back to his hometown Dongxihu district in Wuhan and joined Wuhan Qiangxin Vegetable Production and Marketing Cooperative. He has been dealing with farmers and their produce ever since.
In 2018, he started to do contracted farming — that involves growing produce to order — with Alibaba’s fresh food chain store Freshippo, also known as Hema Xiansheng, where his main task is to balance and fix the prices to match market value fluctuations.
“We buy vegetables from farmers at a relatively stable price, and we provide the vegetables to Hema at a stable price, so that the farmers can have an ensured income despite drought or excessive rain,” Li explained.
“For example, when the market quotation for a kilogram of a specific vegetable is lower than 1 yuan ($0.15), we purchase from farmers at the price of 1.5 yuan per kilo. But if the price rises to 3 yuan or higher, the purchase price rises with it to around 2.2 yuan.
“That’s my understanding of modern farming, and maybe that’s why the UN gave me this honor.”
Wang Shengli, 61, a farmer in Dongxihu district, used to sell his vegetables to local markets by himself.
He and his wife take care of 0.64 hectares of land, growing water spinach, red amaranth and cabbage.
After collecting vegetables from the field, he would ride 12 kilometers on his tricycle with around 200 kilograms of produce to the market, sometimes even as far as 30 km.
“I left at 5 pm and would only return when all the vegetables were sold. Sometimes I had to stay overnight at the market to wait,” Wang recalled. “It was quite dangerous to ride the tricycle at night. There have been many accidents that have happened to other farmers.”
Wang said there were only a few days in a year that his vegetables could be sold for a good price. Sometimes,
when it was harvest time for the vegetables, the price could be quite low and, in the end, he would have to leave the vegetables to rot.
“When I rode back home the next morning, I would have to go straight to work on the farm. It was exhausting,” Wang said.
Wang joined Qiangxin Vegetable Production and Marketing Cooperative in 2011. Since then, all he has had to do is focus on planting his vegetables and leave the sales work to the cooperative.
“Now each day after working the land, I can come back home and rest, and I can take better care of my vegetables,” Wang said.
Since Li started contracted farming with Hema in 2018, Wang has been following Li’s orders. “Li tells us how many kilograms of each vegetable will be collected and when, and we plant accordingly,” Wang explained.
“Before joining the cooperative, as my wife and I have to raise our child, we would not have much money left at the end of each year. Now we can save around 100,000 yuan each year and we are living a fairly comfortable life,” Wang said.
Currently, Li works with 56 farmers with more than 133 hectares of purple bok choy and 67 hectares of cabbage. He plans to cooperate with more farmers out of Wuhan.
Li said the cooperative has set a standard for the farmers’ crops so that he can ensure the quality of the vegetables he provides to Hema and other markets.
According to Li, the cooperative also collaborates with agricultural researchers, and chemical fertilizer and pesticide suppliers to provide scientific instruction and low-priced products to its farmers.
In 2018, Li took a plane for the first time — he took his lotus stalk to Shanghai for a business trip. “Our lotus stalk had not been sold outside of Hubei before that, because it expires very quickly,” he explained.
After communicating with Hema, thanks to their logistics, Li’s lotus stalk is sold on Hema’s stores in more than 10 cities across China including Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xi’an.
“From the farm to the customers’ dining table takes less than 40 hours, which makes it possible for our lotus root to be delivered to more places outside of Hubei.
“I hope to bring other Hubei delicacies to more places by plane,” he said.
Li also communicates with local canteens to sell them the vegetables that do not make it to supermarket shelves. “These are also good vegetables that the farmers took the effort to plant. I don’t want any of them to be wasted,” Li said.
During previous Spring Festivals, Li and his colleagues would take turns to take time off. However, as COVID-19 hit Wuhan and the city was locked down just before this year’s festival began, it became the busiest time for them.
To make sure that there was a continuous supply of vegetables to Hema in Wuhan, Li, and around 30 of his colleagues, worked 16-hour days. In the morning, Li went to the farms to collect their produce. In the afternoon, all of them took turns transporting the vegetables to the market.
“Usually we supply 6,000-8,000 servings of vegetables to Hema every day and, at most, 10,000 servings on weekends. After the lockdown of the city, up to 32,000 servings were delivered in one day,” Li said.
Because of the lockdown, some local farmers’ vegetables could not be purchased and transported out of the area. Li heard about this and went to collect the vegetables and find buyers for them. “I can’t let the vegetables rot,” he said.
Li and his colleagues also volunteered to distribute packaged vegetables to communities short of fresh food, even those near the Huanan Seafood Market where, due to its proximity to the early COVID-19 outbreak, many people were reluctant to deliver.
During the lockdown of the city, up to 1,300 packages of vegetables were delivered by Li and his team each day, each one weighing about eight kilos and each carload weighing nearly five metric tons.
“I remember it was cold in February when one resident brought us a bottle of hot tea. He wrapped the bottle with tissue and asked me to remove the bottle from it to avoid direct contact and asked us to stay safe. I was so touched,” Li said.
Li and his colleagues had to disinfect themselves before returning home. His 15-year-old daughter once asked him not to go to work. He told his daughter: “Have you watched the movies about war? Someone must be brave when the battle begins.”
After learning the news that her father was a “food hero”, Li’s daughter sent him a message that said: “Dad, you are awesome! I’m proud of you.”