Analysis of agricultural product prices, supply chains, corporate behavior, and industry trends.
Qiaoyi’s family in Ruyuan, Shaoguan, moved from the deep Nanling Mountains to beside Danxia Airport. In summer, colony after colony of wild termite mushrooms lets the Guoshan Yao carry on their days living with the mountains and forests in the gaps of urbanisation.
Blackchin tilapia entered Thai waterways via CP Foods’ experimental fish farm in 2010, spreading to 19 provinces over more than a decade. 1,400 fishers have formally filed a lawsuit demanding the responsible party be identified and 2.486 billion baht in compensation.
Coke’s profit code is hidden in public water supply, government-subsidised sugar and cheap caffeine. Bart J. Elmore’s The Coca-Cola Empire writes this “scavenger”-style plunder—and the plastic and obesity bills it foists off—into history.
Three farming friends growing vegetables in Shunyi, Beijing, and Chuxiong, Yunnan have weathered downpours battering trees and droughts cracking reservoirs — their experiences trace the link between rising vegetable prices and climate change.
Nearly twenty years into rural work, Lao Liu (Huang Guoliang) and his partner, Agricultural Technician Luo Lishuang, have nurtured fellow ecological farmers in Guangxi. He discusses the gap between textbook science and rural experience — and asks whether new-generation farmers’ minds have followed their bodies back to the village.
The Jester, the student newspaper at Wageningen University, argues that ethical labels such as Fairtrade and organic certification merely repackage the longing for liberation as product codes – and that under capitalism, ethical consumption does not exist.
Tusheng Shiguan’s ingredients come mostly from Yang Lifen and her husband’s nearly ten-mu ecological garden in Qujing. This fourteen-year-old Kunming shop, born of group-buying among public-interest friends, weathered falling footfall and a team cut from twelve to three, true to its Slow Food philosophy: “Tend slowly, grow slowly.”
Joya, formerly head of Fairtrade International’s China office, experienced firsthand the predicament of trading companies monopolising cooperative decision-making and Western standards frequently misaligning with rural Chinese realities, as she helped farmers obtain Fairtrade certification and connect with overseas markets.
Weekly supply at Xiaoliushu Farm, Shunyi, has dropped from 200 boxes to 40; at Kongkonggu Farm, Pinggu, aubergines and tomatoes were nearly all lost. Autumn sowing is delayed by almost a month, and national wholesale prices are up 40%.
From saccharin and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to genetically modified seeds, Monsanto kept its profits and left the pollution to society for a century. Sun Yat-sen University’s Xu Zhun, Zhejiang University’s Zhou Mujun and others discuss The Seed Empire: who sets the rules, and who pays?
