Labor in food and farming systems, migrant workers, labor rights, and changes in production-side work.
In Part One of “Internship Notes from a Desert Oasis”, I attempted to revert to my instincts as a business journalist, examining the operational struggles faced by ecological farms. Yet, during my two-month internship at Zhiliangtian Farm in Alxa, being a barista was, in reality, my day-to-day routine at the…
In May, I left my job, said a temporary goodbye to Beijing, and headed to the Zhi Liang Tian Ecological Farm in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, where I spent two months. I didn’t expect that during my first month at the farm, I would be drinking every single day. Two-thirds of…
The 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) has opened in Dubai. While humanity continues to squabble over how to shoulder the burden of saving the planet—over who should bear the costs, and who must step outside their comfort zones to transform entrenched…
I. The Beginning In 2018, in a scattered village in Hong Kong’s New Territories that was slated for demolition at any moment, I baked my very first sourdough loaf using a jar of fermented dough I had just received from a friend. Looking back, it barely fermented at all. It…
Torrential rain, flooding, typhoons, droughts… Under the threat of climate change, farmers are invariably the first to bear the brunt of the damage. Yet what is often overlooked is that, in seeking to avert these losses, they are also the most proactive in taking adaptive measures. Last year, the International…
Foodthink Says During the targeted poverty alleviation drive, and in an effort to rapidly secure prosperity for the peasantry, the government of Gong County (pseudonym) introduced greenhouse vegetable cultivation, a venture with strong market returns. Subsidy schemes were rolled out in a bid to integrate this crop into the livelihood…
Thriving industries form a vital foundation for rural revitalisation. Perhaps inspired by Shouguang in Shandong, the primary focus for agricultural development in rural areas across central and western China has often been the promotion of greenhouse vegetable cultivation. Gong County (a pseudonym) in the central region exemplifies this trend. A…
Earlier this spring, before visiting Sister Yan Ping’s “Happy Fruit and Herb Garden” in Guigang, Guangxi, I harboured a mistaken assumption that the farm lay remote from civilisation and enjoyed a pristine ecological setting. In reality, however, it is surrounded by conventional orchards, where pesticides, chemical fertilisers and herbicides are…
Leaving from Beijing Chaoyang Station, we took a little over an hour on the high-speed rail to Pingquan North Station in Chengde, Hebei Province. Yingying Ren, the matriarch of Lianxiang Farm, was already waiting for us outside the station. Yingying is petite, with her hair swept back in a neat,…
Foodthink Says In 1924, Fei Dasheng, along with teachers and students from the Jiangsu Provincial Women’s Sericulture School, arrived in Kaixiangong Village, Wujiang County, to found the Silk Improvement Society. Nearly a century has passed since then. Later, his younger brother, Fei Xiaotong, wove the society’s experiences into his doctoral…
