Foodthink is now recruiting for Editor, Communications and Media Operations, and two Programme Officer positions for the Lianhe Programme and Climate Change, seeking new partners in sustainable food and agriculture at its Zhichun Road office in Beijing.
Back in Shen County, Shandong, she found no vegetables tasting like childhood. Through Foodthink’s Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme, she spent three months at Xiqing Farm, Beijing, learning from farmer Wang Xin – from identifying fully ripe strawberries to understanding ecological balance – now planning an ecological apple orchard at home.
More than half a year since the November 2022 blizzard unseen in over a decade, Jiangbutas Village’s Kazakh pastoralists are still repaying fodder debts and tending frail herds, while slow-melting snow keeps pastures overdue for transhumance still withered and yellow.
Shu Meng, who holds a PhD in sociology from Cornell University, and three hosts discuss the structural factors behind America’s unhealthy diet – from shopping distances and supersized packaging to comparisons with wet markets – and whether farmers’ markets and small-producer grocery shops can offer another path for dietary transformation.
Huanglongbing fells trees, citrus tristeza ruins saplings, agricultural inputs have doubled while fruit prices stall at 2.5 yuan a jin—over thirty years, fruit growers in a Gannan mountain village have lived a navel orange’s full arc, from funding a new house to an ever greater struggle.
In the 1990s, Yinlin Village, Conghua, swapped citrus for lychees; Nuomici once fetched seventy to eighty yuan a jin. Now most fruit trees lie wild. Brother Zhong and Guo Rui watch the old trees, hoping the second Yinlin Lychee Festival will bring the wild lychees back into view.
From late May to early June, Lüwo Farm in Jingyang endured nearly two weeks of continuous rain. Abro wheat and spelt wheat suffered lodging, sprouting and mould, forcing farm owner Dahei to rush an early harvest, with yield dropping by roughly 20%.
Founded by young Dutchmen Sam and Martin, the “Happy Vegetables” farm uses standardised seedbeds, paper-pot propagation, a hand seeder, subsurface sprinkler irrigation and no-till to make ecological vegetable growing a nine-to-five job, earning a decent income through community subscriptions.
The revision removes “drying” from “edible agricultural products” definition. Farmers selling homemade dried vegetables, fruits or fish may face penalties without a food production licence. Foodthink, with farmers, experts and civil society organisations, submitted a proposal urging “drying” be retained to protect smallholders’ right to make and sell dried products.
Jishi, Beijing Organic Farmers Market’s community greengrocer at Fenghuanghui, East Third Ring—ten years sourcing traceable produce from ecological smallholders. After its third renovation, market head Xiaoyun Sheng and designer Kang Zhen discuss balancing ecological ideals with limited budget in CBD, rebuilding ties between people, community and nature.
