Environmental pressures, climate change, biodiversity, species protection, and pollution.
Researching tomato flavours, American writer Chris St. Cavish found that ingredient quality is already determined the moment a seed is chosen; China’s rice varieties have shrunk from 46,000 to 1,000, yet living seeds in farmers’ hands still guard the last of that diversity.
Ecologist Zou Yi at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University finds that land consolidation reduces natural enemy richness in rice paddies, driven by the loss of linear habitats such as field bunds and irrigation channels. She recommends rebuilding these semi-natural habitats and considering the economic and ecological costs of insecticides.
A Nature Communications serum study of 5,696 people across 15 provinces found 74 environmental hazardous chemicals at high detection rates, closely linked to 12 chronic diseases including diabetes and obesity; China’s blood residue levels of organochlorine pesticides and PFASs are significantly higher than in other countries.
At Yinlin Village, Taiping Town, Conghua, Guangzhou, Sister Hu’s 400-plus lychee trees yielded over 8,000 jin last year — this year, not even 100. At Pengcheng Ecological Farm, 200-plus trees produced just a dozen or so lychees. Prices up several times over still cannot recoup the costs.
Brandenburg’s rainfall is 30% below the national average. The Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development has introduced broad beans, chickpeas and other overwintering crops into trial plots at organic farms, recommending farmers gradually shift from the three-summer-two-winter to the three-winter-two-summer rotation.
A shop manager demoted by a single system message; shop assistants grinding non-stop under the commands of 70-odd tasks and 30-odd cameras. Bianlifeng, which handed all decision-making to algorithms, has shrunk from nearly 3,000 stores to just over 1,000.
In Eren Valley, Fujian, Kouzi’s trial-planted onions this spring rotted almost entirely in the field. His carefully prepared winter wheat set not a single grain after daily rain during anthesis. Self-sufficiency dashed – yet he says he’ll still plant.
Farmer Kouzi conflated the Yellow Gourd Beetle with fireflies because its common name contains “Ying”, and in fury kicked a drifting firefly—only afterwards learning that “Ying” (lustrous) and “Ying” (firefly) are entirely unrelated.
In Zhaizi Village, Jianyang, Sichuan, Senior Agronomist Yuan Yong teaches smallholders the no-till cover method for growing rice hands-on. A few aunties and uncles sit round discussing whether it suits their plots; Grandpa Jiang decides on the spot to set aside two fen of land to try it.
Li Pengyue, running an ecological fruit orchard in Weihai, cannot protect her vegetable seedlings without pesticide, mirroring the plight of Jinpa, who holds the snow leopard captive over nine dead sheep in “Snow Leopard”. The only difference: one passively endures; the other actively cedes.
