The environmental and soil impacts of agricultural inputs and pollution issues.
“Scientific farming” in rural Northeast China is shaped largely by agri-supply dealers bundling drones with fertiliser. Maize fell to 1.1 yuan per jin after harvest; farmers spraying twice versus five–six times saw almost no yield difference. More output never brought more income.
The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) finds that the global food system swallows at least 15% of the world’s fossil fuels and 40% of its petrochemicals—yet the industry’s clean alternatives fall far short of their claims.
In summer 2024, agricultural drone pilots in Heilongjiang faced a harsh reality: pesticide drift compensation disputes, health damage amid a lack of labour protection, and per-mu service fees sliding from ten-odd yuan to 2.5 yuan.
In this model village for rural revitalisation, coaches carry visitors along the same route almost every day—yet the scorched paddy bunds beneath the rice ears, scattered fertiliser bags and pesticide bottles, and ever-worsening light pollution never feature in the script.
A post-90s couple, An Tian and San Qi, returned to Zhaixia Village, Longyan, Fujian, to grow passion fruit. Surrounding terraced fields were stained a withered yellow by the villagers’ herbicide, yet little by little they turned textbook Natural Farming into a way of getting along with this land.
At Mondeggi commons, over 450 members collectively farm 1,800 mu of land and deliberate democratically; Genuino Clandestino uses independent certification to bypass official procedures. These communities extend agroecology from a cultivation technique into collective action fighting for land and food sovereignty.
Old Li’s 70 mu of ecological farmland in H Province, guarded fifteen years, lies blanketed by mulch film fragments from a groundnut haulm plant 100 metres away. Spring ploughing slipping; two months of appeals yielded only two departments citing the same law yet deflecting responsibility onto each other.
Li Jidong’s 70 mu of farmland in Luanzhou, Hebei, is blanketed in shredded mulch film from a neighbouring feed-processing plant. The agriculture and environment bureaus cite the same regulations yet each insists the pollution is the other’s to tackle. Spring sowing looms, yet he still cannot sow.
Maize once needed just one round of pesticide; now each crop demands six. The Fall armyworm has pushed farmers onto a “pesticide treadmill”, biological control is too slow, and whether GM maize can break the deadlock remains uncertain.
Mycorrhizal fungi are the living threads of the soil, sustaining its water and crop health. Sequencing by Agroscope confirmed that intensive agriculture has reduced their keystone species to near zero — yet restoring these underground networks is far more complex than scattering an inoculant across the soil.
