Wu Longlong, a Beijing University of Agriculture graduate, returned to Ning County in Gansu, letting his black pigs roam free-range on the hills beside the Ziwuling Reserve — rooting grass, gnawing acorns, lapping up spring water, with the occasional brush with a leopard.
A Foodthink intern at Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm in Alxa confronts the risks of farming at the mercy of the weather and the frictions of communal living — yet among the plants, birds, and beasts beneath the Helan Mountains, discovers the quiet confidence to keep tending the land.
At Yulin’s Longquan Green Vegetable Shop, several owners bound in an egalitarian partnership tend local ecological produce and the daily weigh-and-close routine. Professor Xu Leiqing’s Research Group 408 at Tongji University finds such a community space — most accessible, most frequently visited — is itself a therapeutic setting.
“Food Talk” won the public welfare and environmental protection Annual Podcast Award at the CPA Chinese Podcast Culture Festival. Host Xiaojing ran into “Tuanli Jiegou” host Yu Jiangang there – the two crossed over, exploring the “public welfare” label in listeners’ eyes, why they started podcasting, and unexpected rewards.
CoopCycle brings together 67 cycle-delivery cooperatives from around the world, where riders are paid hourly and enjoy paid leave, with no algorithmic monitoring or dynamic pricing, operating on the democratic principle of “one person, one vote”.
Drawing on cracked dry land in Chongqing and flood-hit Hebei villages, Liu Juan, Associate Professor at China Agricultural University, argues that rural climate adaptation is trapped by ageing labour, unprofitable farming and other fundamental problems. The answer is comprehensive social mechanisms, not treating climate as a siloed issue.
Nearly twenty years into rural work, Lao Liu (Huang Guoliang) and his partner, Agricultural Technician Luo Lishuang, have nurtured fellow ecological farmers in Guangxi. He discusses the gap between textbook science and rural experience — and asks whether new-generation farmers’ minds have followed their bodies back to the village.
Virginia organic farmer Joel Salatin rails against USDA regulations that make on-farm slaughter and on-farm sales all “illegal”. A single Texas farm visit to slaughter chickens and rabbits illuminates the dignity and demise of the butcher’s trade beyond the production line.
Machinery cannot access small, scattered plots, and straw-incorporation subsidies flow mainly to large-scale farms and machinery operators. Yuan Yong, an agricultural technician in Jianyang, Sichuan, has spent over twenty years in no-till mulching, seeking a way for smallholders to nourish the soil and save money.
Foodthink farmer-foodie Kouzi cooks a pot of over a dozen kinds of beans and grains as porridge: soak 48 hours to encourage sprouting and degrade phytic acid, pre-cook beans and grains in stages to remove purines, freeze a day to form resistant starch—one bowl, nutrition and delight.
