Food production, farmers, rural society, and ecological farming practices.
I. Weather-Dependent Small Farmers and Mothers Seeking to Escape the Motherhood Penalty Affected by climate conditions, the survival rate for seedlings planted in late summer this year was remarkably low. Consequently, Hu Xuemei’s farm on the outskirts of Chengdu could not supply any vegetables for delivery over the past few…
Foodthink Says This year is on track to be the hottest on record. Yet at the recently concluded twenty-ninth UN Climate Change Conference, nations continued to dispute funding allocations, repeatedly bringing negotiations to a standstill. The climate finance gap for agriculture, in particular, remains staggering. So, when we talk about…
Foodthink Says What kind of agricultural training do farmers actually need? After nearly twenty years working in rural communities across the country, Lao Liu (Huang Guoliang) has some thoughts on the matter. In his view, understanding agricultural training begins with answering a more fundamental question: what kind of knowledge framework…
“The American system prides itself on being a highly successful culture because we keep more people locked up than we have farmers. To feel smug about such a statistic is utterly contemptible.” Five years on, I still vividly recall the shock I felt when I first read Joel Salatin’s *Everything…
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…
Sichuan Pepper Trees Are Moving Uphill In 2004, I was conducting field research in a village in Mao County, Sichuan. A local resident remarked, “Sichuan pepper trees are moving up the mountains.” He meant that these trees once thrived in the river valleys, but conditions have changed. They now grow…
In mid-April, I arrived at Letian Haiwan Farm in Shanghai, driven by the aspiration to learn how to run a farm. Working and living alongside my companions here, my internship slipped by before I knew it. Before leaving, colleagues asked whether I still wanted to open my own farm. Confronted…
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…
Open Xiaohongshu and search for rainforest hiking, and you’ll find plenty of creators using phrases like “pristine wilderness”, “enveloped by nature”, “disconnected from it all”, and “connecting with primal life force” to describe the emotional resonance the rainforest provides. In September 2024, friends and I also ventured into a tropical…
Not long after settling in Kunming, I added one eatery to my list of spots I simply have to share with friends: Tusheng Eatery. This year marks its fourteenth anniversary, and it has cultivated a dedicated following in the city. Nestled in a creative quarter on a steep hillside, the…
