The environmental and soil impacts of agricultural inputs and pollution issues.
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. Why is maize sprayed with pesticides six times? “I wouldn’t dare buy maize from outside,” Old Lei said with a smile. The remark threw me off. As a city office worker, a boiled cob is my favourite breakfast on any morning I oversleep. I had set out to conduct…
Foodthink Says “Fungi are everywhere, yet remarkably easy to overlook.” Distinct from plants and animals, these life forms exist as mysterious, powerful, and often overlooked presences, quietly guiding humanity’s quest to live in harmony with nature. How do fungi and plants flourish together? What crucial role do mycorrhizal fungi play…
It is autumn harvest season once again, and whether crop stalks should be burnt has once more become a widely debated social issue. In October, open and uncontrolled burning of crop residue showed a rising trend across several areas in Hunan province, worsening air pollution in some districts. As a…
As global warming intensifies, fall armyworm infestations have emerged as a new threat to global agricultural production. During our fieldwork in the summer of 2019 in Jixian County (a pseudonym) on the North China Plain, the arrival of the fall armyworm put the entire county on ‘wartime’ footing. The fall…
I. A Village Party Secretary, Out of Nowhere “Ecological farming?” Fan Hanquan, who had been facing away from us, suddenly turned around. “I’d like to give it a try.” I was taken slightly aback. It was 23 February 2022. I remember the date so clearly because, since I first arrived…
Meeting Nichole was when I first began to grasp just how dire the state of modern food and living environments has become. In the United States, expanses of immaculately manicured front lawns are nothing short of an environmental catastrophe. According to the environmental group Friends of the Earth, Americans spray…
Do we truly understand today’s agriculture and food? When it comes to farming, the first image that springs to mind for many is still that age-old picture of farmers toiling in the fields. Yet in reality, propelled by technology and capital, the landscape of modern agriculture has been transformed beyond…
Foodthink says 15 August marks National Ecology Day. When ecology and biodiversity come to mind, we tend to think first of wild animals or the Amazon rainforest; few consider the intricate relationship between agriculture and ecosystems. In fact, over the past seven decades, the negative impacts of agricultural expansion and…
