Food production, farmers, rural society, and ecological farming practices.
Foodthink Says In 1948, the central government decided to import tractors from the Soviet Union to bring the vast, untamed lands of Beidahuang under cultivation. At the same time, to train agricultural machinery operators, a tractor driver training programme was launched at the Beian Reclamation Area in Heilongjiang. Eighteen-year-old Liang…
I. Climate Change in the No. 1 Document For the first time, the term “low-carbon agriculture” appears in the 2026 Central No. 1 Document. Nearly six years have passed since China announced its “dual carbon” goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality to tackle climate change. This does not mark…
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…
Looking back at 2025, what news about food and agriculture left the deepest impression on you? Was it the struggle to harvest crops amidst the relentless rains of North China, the delivery platform wars, the heated debates over pre-prepared meals that nearly sparked violence, or…? Over the past year, Foodthink,…
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…
Haymaking, or harvesting grass, is a term used exclusively in pastoral regions. In early August 2025, I returned to a traditional Kazakh pastoral village in south-eastern Altay, arriving just as the herders were beginning their hay harvest. Since the television series My Altay captured the public imagination two years ago,…
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…
