Organic production, sustainable farming methods, and ecological farming practices.
How did an organisation focused on insect ecology start caring about farmers’ livelihoods? And how did an organisation focused on livelihoods end up writing a “Song of the Fly“? How did a man from Shanxi become a “male Women’s Director” in a Yunnan village? Why is a top genetic engineering…
Last year, standing by a field edge in Yunnan’s hills, I saw rice for the first time sprouting directly from level soil, with no flooded paddies or irrigation ditches in sight. For many, rice is inextricably linked to flooded paddies. Yet it can just as easily be cultivated on dry,…
Foodthink Says On 17 January 2026, Mercosur (including nations such as Argentina and Brazil, hereafter referred to as Mercosur) and the European Union formally signed a free trade agreement in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. Prior to the signing, the pact had already sparked widespread protests among European farmers. They…
Last April, we moved our Hangzhou studio to the ground floor of an older residential compound with a certain sense of history, gaining a small courtyard in the process. A narrow band of soil runs around the yard; positioned at the front and facing south, it gets excellent sunlight. Though…
I. Almost Left After years back in my hometown, I once seriously considered leaving this village altogether. Starting a few years ago, all the fields in the village were leased to larger farms. In our Jiangnan village, known as the “Chrysanthemum Village,” we are the only family still growing chrysanthemums…
On the final day of the holidays, treat yourself to one more light and refreshing dish. The Herigeobi herders’ gently simmered free-range mutton is simple to prepare, yet anyone who has tasted mutton from their year-round migratory flocks invariably praises it and cannot put down their chopsticks. Across the grasslands…
I. Debunking the Myth of Western Modern Agriculture There is a familiar paradigm of social progress: humanity advanced from hunting and gathering and slash-and-burn cultivation to settled agriculture, and then from intensive smallholder farming to large-scale industrialised agriculture. But did history truly unfold in this manner? Is large-scale monoculture really…
As I set pen to paper, it is the second day of the twelfth lunar month of the Yisi Snake Year, coinciding with the Major Cold solar term and the fourth day of the Fourth Nine. The old saying goes, “During the Third and Fourth Nines, the ice is thick…
A note to all departments: Foodthink’s “Jishi Takeover 3.0” and Annual Gathering Special Project is now officially underway! On Saturday 7 February, from 10:00 to 22:00, we will take over Jishi, the community outlet for the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market at Sanyuanqiao. This is not only the source of ingredients…
During the Spring Festival at the start of 2025, the topic of our family dinner was AI, specifically DeepSeek, which had just blown up. The younger generation couldn’t stop talking about it. I felt a bit detached, much as I had when ChatGPT first launched a couple of years prior.…
