CRI听力:Urban Gardening

In the neighbourhood of Liulichang in downtown Beijing, a small crowd gathered around several planter boxes.

With a handful of dirt in one hand, Jonas Nakonz demonstrated how to make seed bombs while he shared his experience in urban farming.

"I am employed as a specialist for agriculture and urban farming. I'm responsible for agricultural auditing meaning, for instance, transforming land into more sustainable organic farm outside of the city. Within the city, we do rooftop gardens. We start to build up a commercial rooftop farming activity."

Planting flowers and vegetables in the crowded Hutongs and on the rooftops of apartments, Nakonz and his colleagues have started making Beijing a more environmentally-friendly place to live.

Annie Dillon studied urban farming in the United States and arrived in Beijing just three weeks ago.

"I have been interested in urban farming for a couple of years now. I took a course when I was in university that was about trying to figure out ways to revitalize and re-vegetate urban spaces. We actually did seed bombing in that course."

Both Nakonz and Dillon work at We Impact, a social enterprise whose goal is the development and promotion of Sustainable Lifestyles through knowledge, culture, and business.

According to Nakonz, urban gardening is a simple activity that everyone can do.

However, he says Beijing does present a few challenges for his hobby.

"I think the main challenge in Beijing doesn't come from the size or the population. Beijing has pretty rough climate with very cold winters and very hot summers. Technically, it's a bit more challenging than more temperate regions."

Nakonz says he still has hope that urban gardening will become more popular. He says he has already seen evidence of this around the city.

"The people living in the Hutongs - they used to do urban gardening for generations. You can still see it when you walk around. It's pretty impressive. But urban agriculture as a modern lifestyle is still in its very beginning."

Despite the difficulties they will face in popularizing urban gardening in China's capital city, Annie Dillon sees a lot of potential.

"Beijing is definitely challenging. It's dry. It's hard to find good soil in the city. It's obviously such a densely populated area. But I think the number of people and the size of the city also creates a lot of potential. There are such beautiful parks throughout the city. There's a lot of room to beautify the city."

Dillon says she will start her mission to beautify Beijing by growing plants on the rooftop of her own apartment.