Analysis of agricultural product prices, supply chains, corporate behavior, and industry trends.
Zou Lei, a Minzu University of China doctoral student, finds through Yunnan fieldwork that Tall-legged, Frizzled Black-boned and other local breeds vanish one by one under the twin pressures of the migrant-labour exodus and imported broilers, severing the breeds Miao betrothals and the Yi Torch Festival depend on.
Sourdough, olive oil and flaked sea salt have become the hottest items on UK supermarket shelves, behind which lies the anti-ultra-processed food movement sparked by the #UPF hashtag on TikTok. But Waitrose caters primarily to middle-class consumers, and “eating clean” is being packaged as a new consumption hierarchy.
Lufeng’s lychees have had a bumper crop year, yet without a centralised collection point, local smallholders have no alternative to courier shipping. Courier and packaging fees eat up about a third of each order’s revenue—so those bountiful red fruits still don’t come cheap for consumers.
Heat-driven crop losses and surging tourist numbers are merely the fuse. The legacy of the rice acreage reduction policy, JA’s monopoly on procurement and pricing, and a farming population averaging 68.7 years of age are the agricultural crisis truly reflected by the “rice disturbances of the Reiwa era”.
Kangli, a Yunnan Yi woman, put herself through school on matsutake and rooted in Chuxiong; Jinpeng returned to the Greater Khingan forest, supporting his family by mountain foraging for over a decade. They discuss wild mountain produce pricing, depopulation of mountain villages, and the real labour under climate change.
Takeaways, fresh produce, snacks, gift boxes – readers detail everyday life wrapped in layer upon layer of plastic, and share ways to cut down on plastic, such as bringing their own containers and finding recycling points.
The proliferation of plastic is a byproduct of the petrochemical industry seeking outlets for post-war capacity, not a carefully considered decision. In Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, Susan Freinkel argues that the problem lies not with the material, but with the relationship between people and plastic.
Since the 1980s, Taizhou growers have criss-crossed the country growing watermelons. In Yannan Village in southern Jiangsu, twenty households make polytunnels their home, dismantling and rebuilding year after year, running husband-and-wife partnerships across land that demands crop rotation.
Riders’ monthly cost: RMB 525 versus 1,500; pension benefits could differ by more than thirty times. Meituan’s “loss-making” claim crumbles under a close reading of its financial statements, while riders put it plainly: protection is not a luxury.
The sugar industry bought off Harvard professors; Coca-Cola manipulated obesity research. For over half a century, food giants have persistently distorted nutritional science, reducing food to isolated nutrients—at the expense of Americans’ health.
