Food production, farmers, rural society, and agroecological practices.
Through nearly 100 articles, 13 podcast episodes and more than 40 events, Foodthink recorded ordinary people’s food struggles during the pandemic and ecological smallholders’ climate adaptation practices, and sent its first cohort of young interns to 12 farms – leaving solid traces amid uncertainty.
Yu Jiangang resigned in Beijing, returned to the village to raise silkworms and make silk comforters. Over twelve years, he watched two generations of young returnees drift further apart between ecological ideals and commercialisation, and ultimately concluded that true labour on the land is itself home.
A filmmaker who films in the southwest countryside yet always feels far from the land, she spent under a month at Tang Liang’s ecological farm in Niujiao Village, Jintang County, weeding and calling it a day with the eleven-person family. Back home, a whiff of ginger leaves – instantly familiar.
Foodthink is collecting feedback from event participants for the first time. The 5 most constructive responses will receive a set of Douban Nature Series tableware, to improve the quality and experience of our future events.
Jianwen takes us back to his mother’s hearth and his uncle’s herb garden, unveiling the food wisdom behind over a hundred varieties of wild greens and heritage pigs that take two years to mature – a Lisu family living in symbiosis with the mountain.
Hard farm labour need not stem from a lack of strength — keeping your back straight, using a broadfork instead of a hoe, and alternating tasks, drawn from German organic farm training and the US Farmworkers’ Ergonomics handbook, make the work easier and kinder to the body.
