More Than a Field Trip: How Yunhe Worked with a Lavender Cooperative

More than 3,000 kg of locally grown plateau lavender was sold through a project Yunhe developed with a rural cooperative. The work brought together ecological farming training, product development and marketing support. For Yunhe, it also reflects a belief at the heart of our learning programmes: students understand a place more deeply when they encounter the people and ongoing work that shape it.

Around 30 cooperative representatives and members took part in training on ecological planting and land restoration, including ways to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers and herbicides.

We also invited specialists in marketing, design and branding to work with the cooperative on products made from its lavender and ways to reach a wider market.

As well as selling the lavender, the cooperative began building its own marketing connections and taking greater ownership of how local products were developed and promoted. The project connected care for the land with practical opportunities for the people who farm it.

This is the kind of ongoing community work that informs Yunhe’s place-based learning. Students visiting a rural community can explore questions that a brief visit alone might never reveal: How is a crop grown? What choices help protect the land? Who decides how a local product is made and sold? What does success mean to the people who live there?

The lavender project gives those questions a real setting. It helps students see local residents as people with knowledge, decisions and ambitions of their own, and understand how ecology, livelihoods and community initiative are connected.