Labor in food and farming systems, migrant workers, labor rights, and changes in production-side work.
Foodthink Says In January this year, a Beijing resident ordered fresh lilies via Hema, but mistakenly received toxic narcissus bulbs instead, leading to the hospitalisation of their 71-year-old mother and 12-year-old son after they consumed them. Addressing the mix-up, Hema explained that during the picking process, a packer had mistakenly…
Although we frequently talk about being “trapped in the algorithm,” it hardly slows algorithms from embedding themselves ever more deeply into daily life. But do internet creators, delivery couriers, e-commerce hosts, media professionals, and ride-hailing drivers—those who work with algorithms on a daily basis—truly lack their own perceptions and understanding…
I. Farm Machinery Memories of the Post-2000s Generation As far back as I can remember, my family has been farming, cultivating mainly wheat and rice. During school holidays, I used to tail the harvester with my friends, picking up stray rice ears trailing behind it. Harvesters were scarce back then;…
I grew up as a girl who spent her childhood wandering through wet markets. In my day job, I’m an office worker tied to a cubicle, but when the Lunar New Year rolls around, I step in as the “second-in-command” at a market grocer’s stall.What sort of place is a…
At around 7 a.m., 65-year-old Sister Zhen arrives at the sugarcane field. She clips her heavily scratched smartphone to a cane stalk, connects to her neighbour’s Wi-Fi, and opens Douyin. Under her breath, she runs through the steps: “Tap the plus sign, swipe left, go live.” The camera is pointed…
Foodthink Says Why would a girl from the north, who has never even seen sugarcane, head south to grow it? Why would a short-video creator find themselves laughed at by farmers? Why would a PhD candidate refer to themselves as a primary school pupil? Why would a tea research specialist…
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…
When you step into a McDonald’s and take your place at the counter for your usual meal deal, can you sense it: behind that open kitchen, a highly orchestrated “production battle” is underway. In the lore of the fast-food empire, everything is standardised: a strict 90-second service window, fryers held…
On 7 February 2026, after a two-year hiatus, “Occupying the Collective Room” returned, successfully evolving into the Foodthink Annual Meeting. Over the course of 12 hours, we used selling vegetables as a hands-on way to immerse ourselves in the food and farming system. Eight Foodthink members traded their roles as…
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…
