Foodthink is a community dedicated to knowledge, information and writing on sustainable food and agriculture, co-founded and managed by a group of long-standing practitioners and researchers in the field. Since our launch in August 2017, we have connected with nearly 200 outstanding researchers and practitioners across China and internationally. Together,…
In 2021, after a decade of drifting in Beijing, I returned to my hometown of Shenxian County in Shandong due to my mental and physical health. I stayed there for nearly a year. Shenxian is often called “China’s premier vegetable county”, with fruit and vegetable cultivation covering more than a…
In late June, while travelling by car to Jiangbutasi village in eastern Altay, Xinjiang, we kept coming across Kazakh herders on horseback driving their livestock to summer pastures. Vehicles frequently had to pull over to let the herds pass. This is now the migration season for herders. Herders in the…
In this episode of Food Talk, our hosts welcome back an old friend: Shu Meng, PhD in Sociology from Cornell University. Drawing on her widely read article, “The Bigger the Fridge, the Worse the Food? The Food System in Middle-Class American Fridges”, we delve into a pressing question: why does…
Last year, Foodthink published an article 《Taking an Internet Celebrity Home to Sell Navel Oranges: Only Then Did We Realise How Tough Life Is for Fruit Farmers》. In it, Fengche, who works in Guangzhou, shares her story of returning to her hometown to help sell oranges for her family, which…
Which are the finest lychee-growing regions in Guangdong? Zhong Ge and Guo Rui, villagers from Yinlin in Conghua, answered in unison: Conghua would undoubtedly rank among the best. They maintain that a lychee’s quality depends not merely on latitude, but also on local microclimates. Conghua’s crop has long been celebrated…
Recently, reports of Henan’s ‘rotting-field rain’ and the frantic rush to harvest wheat have swept across social media, striking a chord with everyone who follows agriculture. The Guanzhong region of Shaanxi, another major wheat-growing area, endured the same downpours almost simultaneously with Henan, and the outlook for its wheat crops…
Earlier this year, four years after moving to the Netherlands, my partner and I finally rented a hectare of land in Utrecht province, and I began working on my farm. Before I decided to set up a farm, I completed placements at several small organic farms in the Netherlands. During…
Last week, Foodthink’s coverage of the proposed revisions to the Measures for the Quality and Safety Supervision and Administration of Market Sales of Edible Agricultural Products drew considerable attention from our readers. By removing the term “drying” from the definition of “edible agricultural products,” the revision strongly suggests that farmers…
Nestled among the trendy restaurants and cafés on the bustling Phoenix Hui retail street along Beijing’s Eastern Third Ring Road is a greengrocer named “Jishi”. If you’ve ever walked past it, you might have been drawn in by its unpretentious shop window and displays. In this episode, we take you…
