Cultivating perspectives on ancient agriculture

BEIJING - Traditional agriculture researcher Min Qingwen believes every age-old farming convention has value.

The 49-year-old's views fly in the face of contemporary piety, which hails large-scale high-tech farming as the savior of a growing global population.

While Min's views might be unorthodox, he's no fringe crackpot. Rather, he is deputy director of Center for Natural and Cultural Heritage, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.