Foodthink Notes This is the third entry in Foodthink’s field notes from our visit to small-scale fishing communities in Southern Thailand. The previous two pieces discussed how fishers joined forces to drive out commercial trawlers, form a national alliance, and actively engage in legislative and policy advocacy, as well as…
Foodthink’s Perspective This is the second entry in a series of notes from a visit to fishing communities in southern Thailand. In January this year, Foodthink joined the Blue Climate Initiative to visit fishing villages in the south and learn how small-scale fishers protect marine resources. In three mangrove communities…
Last year, on the banks of the fields in the mountains of Yunnan, I saw rice for the first time that grew directly from the levelled soil, without any flooding or irrigation trenches. For many, rice is inextricably linked to paddy fields. In reality, however, it can be grown on…
Foodthink’s Perspective On 17 January 2026, Mercosur (including countries such as Argentina and Brazil, hereinafter referred to as “Mercosur”) and the European Union formally signed a free trade agreement in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. Prior to this, the agreement had already sparked large-scale protests among farmers in Europe, who…
Foodthink Says In January this year, Foodthink joined Blue Climate Partners to visit fishing villages in southern Thailand to understand how small-scale fishers and grassroots NGOs are joining forces to combat overfishing and achieve a win-win for both conservation and livelihoods by establishing “community-managed protected areas”. Journeying from Trang to…
I. Climate Change in the No. 1 Document For the first time, the term “low-carbon agriculture” appeared in the 2026 Central No. 1 Document. This comes nearly six years after China announced its “dual carbon” goals of reaching a carbon peak and achieving carbon neutrality. However, this does not mean…
I. Dismantling the Myths of Western Modern Agriculture We are all familiar with a certain paradigm of social progress: humanity moved from hunting and gathering and slash-and-burn techniques to settled agriculture, and then from the intensive cultivation of small-scale farming to large-scale industrial agriculture. But is this truly how history…
“Is there really nothing else to eat in this world?” “Snowpiercer was way ahead of its time!” Just yesterday, these were the existential questions being asked by netizens after seeing a reporter visiting an American cockroach farm drink a cup of ‘cockroach crunchy coffee’. Imagine that, besides the American cockroach,…
A Word from Foodthink On 12 January, based on field research in multiple regions, Foodthink published an original article titled “Who Lowered the Standards of “High-Standard Farmland”?”. This drew comments from practitioners and researchers in the agricultural and engineering fields across the country, who shared their observations on the construction…
7 January 2026: the first big piece of news for foodies this year—the US has released a new version of its Dietary Guidelines. It has caused a stir, with opinions divided and debate raging. The most obvious changes are clear at a glance in this image. The comments following the…
