Cross-border food and grain trade, import/export policies, and global market impacts.
“It’s all political games!” This was the near-universal response whenever I raised the government’s rice trade policies during my visit to Mindanao in the southern Philippines this past April. Those I spoke with ranged from mayors and government agricultural extension officers to ordinary smallholder farmers whose livelihoods depend on the…
Selected work of the 2024 Foodthink Lianhe Creative Programme“Fake Meat” Ousts Real Meat: Dining Tables, Herders and the AmazonThe English version has been officially published on Sixth Tone (澎湃新闻’s English-language platform). It has been slightly abridged from the original draft. We thank Sixth Tone’s editors and our readers for their…
Foodthink Says 21 March is International Forest Day, with this year’s theme, “Forests: A Valuable Source of Food”. Yet on the other side of the world, Brazil’s beef industry continues to expand at the cost of felled forests and lost biodiversity. Faced with international demands to halt deforestation, major meat…
Foodthink says On 25 January, Foodthink Lianhe Creative Project-funded 《“Fake Meat” Ousts Real Meat: Tables, Herders, and the Amazon》 premiered on Jiesheng Zhi, garnering significant attention. We thank our readers for sharing and engaging with it. In this long-form piece, grounded in multi-site fieldwork and interviews, you will read an…
Foodthink Says Since the 1950s, a global “Fairtrade” movement has gained momentum. Cheap agricultural products from developing countries have flowed steadily into developed nations, yet the vast majority of profits embedded in commodity prices have been extracted by large capitals within the trade chain, while farmers and labourers see only…
In 2022, Britain’s headlines were dominated by the Queen’s passing, Charles’s accession, soaring heating and electricity bills, and a revolving door of prime ministers. Yet, as the year drew to a close, another story captured the public’s attention: the “egg shortage”. For several weeks from November through December, major supermarkets…
In early November, Odesa had not yet been gripped by widespread missile strikes or power cuts, and shops along the streets remained open for business. I met farmer Aleksey at a café in the city centre. Aleksey’s farm is situated near Odesa. He says it covers 1,000 hectares and includes…
