Rural revitalization, rural infrastructure, social change, and public services.
On 4 April last year, Foodthink published a “collection of deleted articles”. Since then, each time a piece was taken down, the team would console themselves with an inside joke: “We’ve already got another ‘404ed 404’ for next year.” But the 404s over the past two years aren’t entirely the…
Foodthink Says As the Qingming Festival approaches, whether for travel or tomb-sweeping, many will head to the countryside for a few meals of “farmhouse food”. This year’s Spring Festival was no different for the author of this piece. This account of dining during a return to the village for the…
Having left the small village where every household practised fermentation for so long, and drifted too long in the uncertainties of city life, I had lost a measure of my own vitality. This is something I have only recently come to realise. For years, fermentation was nothing more than a…
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…
Foodthink Says On 12 January, based on research conducted across several regions, Foodthink published an original article 《What’s Driving Down the Standards of “High-Standard Farmland”?》, which attracted comments from practitioners and researchers across the agriculture and engineering sectors nationwide. They shared their observations on the construction and operation of high-standard…
In November 2025, Zhao Lishun, a farmer from Meishan, watched the village’s rice paddies go unharvested, shaking his head in dismay. Yet these fields no longer belonged to him, nor to the villagers, but to the “bosses”—large-scale land contractors from out of town who had acquired the plots through land…
I. Nine Years: Change and Continuity On 5 January 2026, upon reading a report in the Farmers Daily titled “Hebei’s Rural Heating Crisis Must Not Be Delayed Further”, I felt a sudden jolt, as if abruptly transported back nine years. I am from Hebei. 2016 was the first freezing winter…
Early October saw record-breaking rainfall across multiple northern regions. Amid citizens’ bewildered exclamations of “How much longer will this go on?” and “Have we really become the south?”, and as farmers stood helpless before crops drowning in sludge, we marked the 36th International Day for Disaster Reduction. Established by the…
Recently, Cai Guo-Qiang and Arc’teryx sparked controversy with a “mountain-blasting” art project in the Himalayas that damaged the fragile plateau ecosystem. The relationship between humanity and nature, alongside the exploration of local culture, were featured prominently in the promotional material for the fireworks display. Yet a performance that markets nature…
Foodthink Says As climate change intensifies, rural “natural disasters” are becoming an everyday reality. Yet there are always more ways forward than obstacles. It is not just farmers and government bodies seeking solutions; civil society organisations are also drawing on their local, flexible, and community-embedded approach to help small villages…
