I. Catastrophic Harvest Collapse: Lychees Face a ‘Super Lean Year’ Conghua District in Guangzhou is one of Guangdong’s main lychee-growing regions. July is normally the peak of the local harvest, yet familiar sights are disappearing. Branches that once bowed under heavy fruiting are now just lush with green leaves; you…
“These oats were sown in mid-October last year, and we found the ‘Eagle’ variety gave the best performance. If we opt for closer planting, the yield per hectare will be higher.” “Have you ever tried wider spacing?” On 12 June, at Gut Wilmersdorf, an organic farm an hour’s drive from…
I. “You Have Been Penalised and Demoted to Clerk” “You have been penalised and demoted to a clerk.” A few months ago, Ms L, a store manager at a Bianlifeng branch in Beijing, suddenly received a message to this effect on her handheld terminal. As part of her daily routine,…
Foodthink Notes This year’s rainfall across southern China has been deeply concerning. Beyond the news reports of widespread damage, we have also begun receiving troubling updates from our farming partners regarding diminished yields. Kouzi, a long-standing friend of Foodthink based in Fujian, has seen his onion and wheat crops nearly…
6 July marks International Cooperative Day, with this year’s theme being “Cooperatives are building a better future for all.” Cooperatives form a global social movement. Since the founding of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in 1844, the movement has spanned 180 years, taking root and flourishing across the globe.…
This episode of Food Talk features Huang Guoliang, an experienced rural development practitioner. As is common among his peers, we usually refer to him simply as ‘Lao Liu’. Lao Liu has been working in rural communities for nearly two decades, having first embarked on this path in 2005. He shared…
Editor’s Note In Chengdu’s Yulin community, a surprise vegetable parcel from farming friend Hu Xuemei brought a little shock—and an unexpected shift—to Xia Lili, the cook at the Little Dining Table. This is the fourth piece in the “One Pot Shitai’s Little Dining Table” series. It will explore Xia Lili’s…
Shelling and grinding buckwheat groats into flour, mixing it with wheat flour to form a dough, and then slicing it into fine, slender noodles yields one of Japan’s most everyday staples. In Japanese, *soba* (buckwheat) is a homophone for “beside”. Consequently, asking for “buckwheat noodles” sounds identical to saying “please…
I once wrote How Much Land Does a Person Need?, and experience has shown that a modest plot of roughly an acre is entirely sufficient to meet all my life’s needs. So, for someone living on that smallholding, just how much living space is actually required? I want to respect…
I. Setting out with questions in mind Late in March, I embarked on a three-month internship at Guixinyuan Farm. Partly, this was to test whether I was suited to life as an agricultural worker; partly, I was searching for an ideal model of farming: What kind of relationship ought agriculture…
