Nongzao Practice • The Seed Initiative

“A seed is an enduring mark inscribed on the land by the passage of time for human civilisation.”

Original | Xu Gang • Nongzao Notes

Seeds are the starting point of agricultural production. They also carry the accumulated knowledge of local environments, cultivation practices and food cultures. Whether a seed continues to grow in a particular place depends not only on its biological characteristics, but also on the local soil and water, the ways in which it is cultivated, and whether people still choose to grow, save and exchange it.

In April 2018, NONGZAO began field research in Huanggang, a Dong village in Liping County, Qiandongnan, Guizhou Province, China. This work gradually developed into the Seed Project. Through investigations into local seeds, traditional farming systems and village life, we sought to understand the relationship between seeds and place, and to explore how design might engage with the realities of local agriculture.

As the research progressed, we came to understand that the disappearance of a seed variety means more than its withdrawal from the fields. When a crop is no longer cultivated, the cultivation knowledge, seed-saving practices, food traditions and local knowledge associated with it may also fall into disuse. Bringing a seed back into cultivation likewise requires these connections to be rebuilt.

01. Seeds Once Moved Freely

Throughout agricultural history, seeds have rarely remained confined to the places where they were first grown. Through migration, trade, marriage, festivals and everyday encounters, people carried seeds to new places. Over generations of cultivation and selection, crops adapted to different climates, soils and farming practices, gradually developing into varieties with distinct local characteristics.

During our research in Huanggang, it was not a particular rice variety that first caught our attention, but a phrase repeatedly mentioned by villagers: chi xiangsi. It refers to a traditional form of festive exchange in which people from different villages gather for celebrations and bring gifts, including unhusked rice. Here, rice was not simply food; it could also serve as a vehicle for the movement of seeds. Only later did we begin to appreciate how this seemingly ordinary exchange of gifts might help a local variety survive over generations.

In the 1920s, the Soviet botanist Nikolai Vavilov led plant-collecting expeditions that took him to more than 60 countries over a period of ten years. He assembled a collection of over 300,000 cultivated-plant specimens and seed samples and developed his theory of centres of crop origin. His work offered a scientific perspective on something we would repeatedly encounter in the field: the development of local varieties is closely tied to the everyday practices of ordinary farming households. Through saving, selecting, exchanging and continually planting seeds, farmers help crops adapt to local conditions while building practical knowledge around them.

Such movement was commonplace in pre-modern agricultural systems. Seeds traditionally functioned as a shared resource: farmers could save their own seeds, exchange them freely with neighbours and introduce varieties from other regions without the barriers of formal ownership. Modern agriculture has changed how many local varieties are cultivated and circulated. With the growth of commercial seed industries, standardised production and the promotion of high-yielding varieties, many traditional crops have gradually disappeared from everyday farming.

Changes in the number of crop varieties need to be understood in relation to particular crops, regions and methods of measurement; a single figure cannot adequately describe changes in global agricultural diversity. Yet the concern extends beyond the loss of genetic resources themselves. When a local crop is no longer grown, the knowledge, food traditions and farming experience associated with it may also lose the conditions needed for their continuation.

02. The Disappearance of a Variety

Gouyangdang is a variety of xianghe nuo, a fragrant glutinous rice traditionally cultivated in Huanggang. Closely connected to the village's mountainous environment and farming practices, it holds a distinctive place in local memory for its fragrance and cultural significance.

According to our early field research, by 2018 Gouyangdang had long since disappeared from everyday cultivation in Huanggang, and the traditions of seed saving and cultivation associated with it had almost been interrupted. Through conversations with villagers, we gradually pieced together its history, learning about its growing characteristics, cultivation methods and uses in local life.

Gouyangdang's characteristics are closely related to the water conditions of Huanggang's rice fields. Local farmers told us that the variety was suited to cold-water paddies and had a long growing season, sometimes exceeding 200 days under particular conditions. Its plants grew tall and could tolerate relatively deep water. Its distinctive fragrance was also central to how people remembered it. Villagers described the aroma of steaming xianghe nuo with a saying: “When one family steams glutinous rice, the whole village fills with its fragrance.” This simple expression helped us recognise that the significance of a crop cannot be measured solely by its yield or commercial value.

As cropping patterns changed, traditional fragrant glutinous rice varieties with long growing seasons gradually lost their place in agricultural production. Since the mid-twentieth century, the promotion of varieties intended to increase yields and shorten growing cycles has reshaped rice cultivation in many regions. When newer varieties better suited farmers' production needs, the incentive to continue growing and saving traditional seeds could diminish.

But the story of Gouyangdang did not end in Huanggang.

During our research, we learned that historical seed-exchange networks might have left another trace of the variety. According to villagers, rice was often exchanged as a gift when people from different villages visited one another for festivals such as chi xiangsi. We began to ask whether Gouyangdang might once have been carried to another village and continued to be grown there.

Following this lead, we visited several surrounding villages. Eventually, we found the variety in a Shui ethnic village in Libo, more than 60 kilometres from Huanggang.

Gouyangdang had once travelled from one village to another. That earlier movement had allowed it to survive elsewhere, making it possible to find the variety again after its cultivation had disappeared from its place of origin.

This discovery changed our understanding of seed conservation. Seeds do not survive only in formal germplasm banks. They may also persist in farmers' growing practices, household seed-saving traditions and the long-standing relationships between villages. An exchange of gifts that once seemed entirely ordinary may, generations later, become the reason a local variety is still alive.

In 2019, NONGZAO brought the recovered Gouyangdang seeds back for cultivation. As the plants began to grow again, villagers in Huanggang started to take an active interest in the project. Thirty-two households expressed a willingness to grow the variety. We provided them with seeds in the hope that, through actual cultivation, Gouyangdang could once again become part of local agricultural life.

In 2020, the harvest of Gouyangdang exceeded 30,000 jin (roughly 15 tonnes).

This marked a significant milestone in the revival effort, but it did not mean that the work of conserving the variety was complete. Its continued survival would depend on whether people kept growing and saving it, and whether it could find a renewed place in contemporary farming and everyday life.

03. Understanding Huanggang's Farming System

After finding Gouyangdang, we thought the most difficult part was behind us. But when we began trying to grow it again in Huanggang's fields, we realised how little we understood about the land.

One of the first things to challenge our assumptions was a type of paddy known locally as ruan tian, or “soft field”. Villagers took us to see plots that remained flooded throughout the year, with water levels typically above 30 centimetres. At first, we could not understand why rice would be grown in such conditions. The water was deep and cold, and sunlight was limited. On the surface, these fields seemed ill-suited to rice cultivation.

The villagers explained that the fields were fed by mountain springs and that the water temperature remained low. Most introduced rice varieties struggled to tiller under these conditions, resulting in reduced yields. Local xianghe nuo, by contrast, had adapted to the cool, shaded environment through generations of cultivation and selection. Its plants could grow to over a metre tall and tolerate a certain depth of standing water.

We began to understand that the characteristics of a local variety are not simply biological traits that exist independently of their surroundings. They are part of an adaptive relationship formed over time between a crop and the specific conditions in which it is grown.

Huanggang has a history of mountain terrace farming stretching back 800 years without interruption. At its peak, the village maintained more than 40 xianghe nuo lines with distinct genetic traits, each associated with particular plots and ways of managing them. By the time of our 2019 field research, only a little over ten varieties remained that farmers could reliably grow and continued to save of their own accord.

These changes led us to ask what is really lost when local varieties decline. Is it simply a reduction in the number of seeds, or the erosion of an entire body of cultivation knowledge and production relationships built around them? If a variety is adapted to a particular water depth, temperature and farming calendar, bringing it back to its original location does not necessarily mean it will grow successfully. To understand a seed, we also need to understand the agricultural system that sustains it.

The integrated cultivation of rice, fish and ducks gave us a more concrete view of these relationships. At first, we saw only ducks moving through the fields and fish swimming in the water. We assumed it was a relatively loose form of mixed farming. Later, villagers explained the carefully coordinated arrangements on which the system depended.

Within the terraced paddies, farmers dug low-lying, sheltered hollows known as yuwo, or “fish shelters”. Branches were used to create cover, giving the fish places to hide from the ducks. Ducklings were introduced only after the young fish had grown to around three cun (roughly 10 centimetres). The ducks themselves were not allowed into the fields until the glutinous rice had headed and its stalks had grown beyond one metre, reducing the risk of damage to the developing ears of rice.

As they moved through the fields, the ducks turned the surface soil, helped control weeds and fed on pests, aquatic plants and small fish and shrimp. Rice, fish and ducks were not independent elements placed together in the same field. Their relationships were shaped by the timing of their growth, the conditions of the paddy and the sequence of farming activities.

In terms of rice yield alone, xianghe nuo produces around 300 jin per mu, considerably less than the approximately 1,000 jin per mu achieved by hybrid rice. Yet under the integrated rice–fish–duck system, each mu of terraced paddy can also yield 30–50 jin of rice-field fish and 60–70 locally raised small Xiang ducks. By coordinating the growth cycles of rice, fish and ducks, farmers have developed a system of combined cultivation that does not rely on chemical fertilisers or pesticides and allows the fields to remain productive over time.

This system is not a technical solution that can simply be detached from its setting and reproduced elsewhere. It depends on the local terrain, water sources and crop cycles, as well as farmers' ability to observe and judge the changing conditions of rice, fish and ducks. Not all agricultural knowledge exists as a discrete tool or a clearly defined set of instructions. Some of it is acquired through long experience and continually adjusted through everyday work.

This also changed how we understood Gouyangdang. Its growing characteristics, fragrance and taste matter, but whether it can continue to be cultivated also depends on the local paddies, farming practices, food traditions and choices made by farmers. A local variety is not an isolated specimen that can be conserved on its own; it is part of a wider agricultural system. Preserving seeds without the land, knowledge and relationships that sustain them does not guarantee that they will continue to grow.

04. Moving Forward Through Experimentation

The Seed Project began with field research and gradually moved into seed cultivation, farmer participation and product development. Through these activities, we learned that finding a variety is only the starting point. Cultivation, revival and transformation all require practical work and ongoing verification.

In 2019, we worked with 32 farming households on a relatively standardised seedling programme involving 64 xianghe nuo varieties. Initially, we assumed that if we could find the seeds and provide suitable plots, they would grow again. In practice, 34 varieties successfully produced seedlings, and 28 survived after transplanting. The differences observed during germination, seedling growth and transplanting drew our attention to the effects of water supply, soil, temperature and cultivation management. These results recorded both the progress made and the varieties that did not continue growing.

The revival of Gouyangdang was one of the project's most significant experiments. We recovered the seeds in Libo, cultivated them in 2019 and then supplied them to the 32 Huanggang households that had expressed an interest in growing the variety. By 2020, the harvest had exceeded 30,000 jin (roughly 15 tonnes). This was a clear milestone, but we still needed to observe how the variety performed in subsequent years and whether farmers would continue to grow and save its seeds. A successful revival in one season demonstrates that a variety can grow again; it does not, by itself, establish that the variety can return to local agricultural life over the long term.

Alongside cultivation, we also explored ways to develop products from xianghe nuo, including rice products and a fermented drink combining the rice with passionfruit. We initially hoped that new product forms could bring local varieties into contemporary consumption and create tangible value for the farmers involved. But product development did not automatically resolve the question of how these varieties would endure. Whether there was sustained demand, whether processing methods suited local conditions, and whether the income generated could support cultivation all required further testing in practice.

We also proposed setting aside five per cent of product revenue for a cooperative fund dedicated to seed conservation. The intention was to direct part of the commercial returns towards maintaining seed stocks and supporting future cultivation. This remained a proposal to be tested, rather than an established mechanism. Making it work would require a clear organisational structure, transparent fund management and agreed rules for participation, as well as evidence of its viability through actual production and sales.

These experiments did not produce a complete solution, but they helped us define the questions that still needed to be addressed: how to cultivate seeds reliably, how to sustain farmers' participation, how to bring local varieties into contemporary consumption, and how to ensure that the value generated by products could support future cultivation. Each question would have to be tested further against the realities of farming and production.

05. What the Practice Taught Us

Looking back on the Seed Project, we can see how our understanding of local agriculture has changed.

At first, we understood seed conservation as finding a variety at risk of disappearing and bringing it back into cultivation. Gouyangdang taught us that recovering seeds, harvesting a crop and establishing long-term continuity are distinct stages of practice. A successful season can open up new possibilities, but it cannot replace the ongoing work of cultivation and seed saving.

We also hoped that product development could create new value for local varieties and allow commercial activity to support seed conservation. The project showed us, however, that product development, market demand, farmer income and continued cultivation do not automatically form a stable relationship. Establishing these connections requires long-term collaboration and practical testing; they cannot be resolved through design intentions alone.

More importantly, we gradually stopped seeing local agriculture simply as a collection of traditional varieties or techniques waiting to be preserved. Huanggang's xianghe nuo, its ruan tian paddies and its integrated rice–fish–duck farming revealed an agricultural system shaped by natural conditions, accumulated farming knowledge, food traditions and human choices. These relationships developed through long practice, but they also change as technology, labour, production methods and market demand evolve.

Conserving a local variety, therefore, does not mean keeping tradition unchanged. What matters is understanding why a variety grows in a particular place, how it has become connected to local production and everyday life, and whether the conditions for those connections to continue still exist today.

For NONGZAO, the Seed Project did not provide a complete answer. It did, however, change the starting point of our design practice. Rather than focusing only on recovering a seed or developing a product from it, we began to investigate the wider relationships that allow it to grow, looking for possibilities through direct engagement with the realities of the field.

Keeping the Seeds Growing

From 2018 to 2021, NONGZAO carried out sustained field research and practical experiments in Huanggang. From investigating local varieties and recovering Gouyangdang to cultivating seeds, working with farming households and exploring product development, the project gradually revealed that seeds are both the starting point of agricultural production and a medium through which local environments, lived experience and social relationships are connected.

Bringing Gouyangdang back to the fields of Huanggang was a tangible achievement. But beyond the quantity harvested, a more important question remains: once a seed has begun to grow again, how can it continue to be cultivated, understood and valued in local life?

This is the question the Seed Project leaves us with.

Seeds do not belong only to the past. Their place in the future depends on whether they can remain connected to the land, to production and to people's lives. Perhaps the role of design is to begin with these connections and explore how they might continue to grow.

— Project Period: 2018–2021