Seed sovereignty, heirloom variety preservation, and traditional breeding systems.
I. The Seed Bottleneck Farmers in Guzai Yao Ethnic Township, Mashan County, north of Nanning, saw their incomes rise sharply from growing chayote seedlings. Yet since last year, they have found themselves with nothing left to plant. 2024 brought multiple spells of extreme rainfall to Guangxi. In Mashan, the relentless…
The world’s table begins with China’s little pulses 10 February 2025 marks the seventh World Pulses Day. This year’s theme is ‘Pulses: Bringing Diversity to Agrifood Systems’. Grow pulses, eat pulses, diversify agriculture, live healthily. Soybeans, edamame and black beans are common fixtures on the dinner table, yet these pulses…
In 2024, we received a wealth of books spanning food, agriculture, ecology, sustainability, and culture, each capturing the complexities and possibilities of our world in its own way. From hurried workers to contemporary grassland pastoralists, from the food politics behind foie gras to the diverse efforts safeguarding seeds, from the…
Foodthink Commentary Some media outlets have dubbed 2024 “the inaugural year of GMO commercialisation” in China. In 2023, 37 genetically modified maize varieties and 14 GM soybean varieties passed varietal approval, while 26 companies were granted production and operation licences for GM maize and soybean seeds. In 2024, regional roll-outs…
Foodthink Says 16 October marks the 44th World Food Day, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) designating this year’s global theme as: “Food Security for All, Building a Better Life, Creating a Brighter Future.” Advocates and promoters of GM technology have long packaged it as the premier solution…
Editor’s Note I was introduced to Jiang Ziqi at a book fair in Hangzhou in 2023, when she invited the Farmer Seed Network to share our work on seed saving. Back then, I learned that she and a few companions in Hangzhou were cultivating their own small vegetable plots and…
Editor’s Note I met Jiang Ziqi at a book fair in Hangzhou in 2023. She invited Peasant Seed Network to give a talk on seed saving at the event. At that time, I learned that she and a few friends in Hangzhou were tending their own small vegetable plots and…
Last week, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region endured back-to-back strikes from two typhoons registering Category 10 or above, all within four days—a historic rarity. Around 7:30 am on 16 September 2024, Typhoon Koppu made landfall near Lingang New City on the Pudong coast, Shanghai. At landfall, it packed Category 14 winds near…
Editor’s Note A plate of steamed chicken with peas had the children salivating, and left the regulars at the recently reopened Little Dining Table licking their lips. Yet, however memorable a farm-grown dish may be, miss it this year and you must wait until next. Food from the land grows…
Meeting Nichole was when I first began to grasp just how dire the state of modern food and living environments has become. In the United States, expanses of immaculately manicured front lawns are nothing short of an environmental catastrophe. According to the environmental group Friends of the Earth, Americans spray…
