Personal stories and production narratives of smallholders, individual farmers, and family farms.
Foodthink Says “Half the year we bake, the other half we drown.” Farmers across parts of Guangxi are weathering unprecedented natural disasters. It started with an once-in-sixty-years drought. From November last year to April this year, average rainfall across Guangxi fell nearly 70 per cent short of the long-term average,…
This episode of Food Talk features an impromptu conversation recorded at ‘Jishi’, the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market’s physical space at Sanyuanqiao. We’ve welcomed back two old friends: Kang Li and Jin Peng. One is a Yi woman from Chuxiong, Yunnan, who funded her studies by selling mountain mushrooms and matsutake.…
Summer arrives, and with it, another season for watermelon. Watermelons are inseparable from summer, just as the farmers behind the fruit evolve alongside their crop. Wherever there is land, you will find the watermelon farmers of Taizhou. Their history of enterprise dates back to the 1980s, forming another chapter in…
I. The Early Blooming Flowers On the morning of 3 May, in Jinqu Town, Meixian County, Shaanxi, Xu Yuanlin spotted the messenger flowers in his own vineyard. He was taken aback. The messenger flower is the first spike to bloom in a vineyard, acting as a herald to remind growers…
From late last year through April this year, Chiang Mai—a popular tourist destination in northern Thailand—has frequently been shrouded in thick smog. On 29 March, IQAir ranked the city as the world’s most polluted, recording an AQI (Air Quality Index) of 188; this stands at 17.4 times the limit set…
Foodthink Says On 7 March, Foodthink published an article titled *Farmland Polluted by Plastic Mulch Film, Absurd Buck-Passing Between Authorities*, documenting a farmer’s predicament: his fields were contaminated by plastic mulch film discharged during processing by a neighbouring enterprise. Yet the local ecological environment bureau and agriculture and rural affairs…
I. The Sudden Mulch Film Crisis Spring ploughing is imminent, yet Li Jidong, a farmer in Nuomizhuang Village, Luancheng City, Hebei, finds himself unable to till his land. Scattered across his 70-mu (approximately 11.5 acres) field are fragments of plastic mulch of all sizes, blown in from a neighbouring operation.…
I. Returning to 2011 The reserve shuttle bus pulled over beside a narrow concrete track, flanked on either side by familiar-looking karst hills. It passed through a stand of sugarcane; in truth, countless bald limestone outcrops are ringed by cane fields. Unlike the purple-skinned varieties eaten fresh, this cane bears…
Foodthink Says How many people can dedicate themselves to a single cause for a decade? The Nanning Urban Farmers’ Market certainly can. Since its inaugural market day in 2013, it has now entered its eleventh year in 2024. Taking place every two months, the market draws dozens of stallholders on…
With the twelfth lunar month drawing near, a Shaanxi person’s comfort food invariably boils down to a simple bowl of tossed noodles: Yanguiqing’s Red Guangtou wheat wide noodles, sizzling chilli oil made from Qin pepper powder, and a rich minced pork topping crafted from free-range mountain pigs—the latter being the…
