Environmental pressures, climate change, biodiversity, species protection, and pollution.
Farm owner Zhen Rui’s two staff were swept three to four hundred metres by floodwater before escaping from their sleep in the small hours. Their 450 mu of land and nearly thirty million yuan invested over more than a decade were wiped out overnight—with no evacuation notice.
Zou Lei, a Minzu University of China doctoral student, finds through Yunnan fieldwork that Tall-legged, Frizzled Black-boned and other local breeds vanish one by one under the twin pressures of the migrant-labour exodus and imported broilers, severing the breeds Miao betrothals and the Yi Torch Festival depend on.
Aged 61, Sun Wenxiang carries fertiliser, weeds and raises pigs in Qilong Village, Hongya County. He has preserved more than 12 heritage rice seed varieties yet receives no policy subsidies, and whether his daughter will take over remains uncertain.
In a Jing’an District McDonald’s, part-time pay is 19 yuan an hour — just two yuan more after 1,000 hours. Five stations, each worker locked to their post; rainy-day delivery surges send riders and staff unraveling together. The assembly line cuts apart workers’ shared lives.
In an exclusive interview with Foodthink at the 3rd International Agrobiodiversity Congress, veteran BBC journalist Dan Saladino moves from Sichuan Red-Mouth Glutinous Rice to the revival of British farmhouse cheese and the Perry pear, discussing how to safeguard diversity in the industrial food system.
Foodthink has compiled four firsthand accounts of Guangxi’s floods from Liuzhou, Nandan and Du’an. Amid sudden swings between drought and flooding, flash floods destroyed water systems, ponds lay empty, and White-trousered Yao women braved the downpour to rescue hand-sewn ceremonial outfits — a season’s livelihood faces rebuilding.
On World Rainforest Day, Foodthink has compiled over a hundred reader comments via Jieshengzhi on “Fake Meat” Drives Out the Real Thing: from “Brazil’s deforestation has nothing to do with us” to “Forest-burning concerns every creature”, laying bare the full consumer-side divide over imported beef’s environmental cost.
A joint investigation by Repórter Brasil and Hong Kong Free Press found that four Hong Kong-based companies purchased beef offal from 163 Beef, a slaughterhouse that repeatedly bought cattle from the Heller family farm, charged with deforesting 6,500 hectares.
Shaanxi is experiencing its worst drought since 1961. In May, at a workshop in Xianyang, Foodthink visited ecological farms and discussed climate technologies and pathways for social organisations, seeking ways to help farmers face climate disasters with preparedness and support.
This spring, Shaanxi logged its lowest average precipitation for the same period since 1961. Shitouhe Reservoir — the “Water Tower of Guanzhong” — is nearly dry. Mei County fruit growers pay steep wages for migrant workers to race the flowers; wheat fields yellow and wither over vast stretches.
