Labor in food and farming systems, migrant workers, labor rights, and changes in production-side work.
Drawing on cracked dry land in Chongqing and flood-hit Hebei villages, Liu Juan, Associate Professor at China Agricultural University, argues that rural climate adaptation is trapped by ageing labour, unprofitable farming and other fundamental problems. The answer is comprehensive social mechanisms, not treating climate as a siloed issue.
Virginia organic farmer Joel Salatin rails against USDA regulations that make on-farm slaughter and on-farm sales all “illegal”. A single Texas farm visit to slaughter chickens and rabbits illuminates the dignity and demise of the butcher’s trade beyond the production line.
A Community-Supported Agriculture farm in Fengxian, Shanghai—20 mu of arable land held up by four farmhands in their seventies, members unwilling to share yield-loss risks, organic fertiliser still bought in—three months of farm life have reconciled ecological farming’s ideals with its realities, entry by entry.
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.
From a short film about delivery riders to a Parliamentary vote, Singapore used its unique system of tripartism over three years to close the institutional gap for more than 70,000 platform workers, securing protections in CPF, Work Injury Compensation and collective bargaining.
An Anhui family travelled far into the Hunan countryside to open a mooncake factory. The child grew up beside the conveyor belt through summer holidays, until the factory shut, the fields all became sheds, and the bicycle on the river embankment rode ever further away.
Director Liu Taifeng of Another Day Full of Hope says riders’ “zero-cost onboarding” is really just debt for equipment and rent upfront; engineers under KPIs dare not question the system; restaurant owners must pad reviews — all strata are bound by the same algorithmic logic.
Foodthink chats with director Liu Taifeng and producer Zhu Tong about their in-depth research into delivery riders before filming, and about riders and programmers being equally trapped in the system – and how to find our footing when faced with platforms.
Apollo Go in Wuhan leaves drivers with nothing but remote fire-fighting; Bianlifeng locks store managers’ experience outside the algorithm; Meituan’s system turns the time riders save by running red lights into new standards — power is accelerating toward the platforms.
Going Against the Flow has its programmer protagonist fall to become a delivery rider, yet ends with his return to a major internet company; it reduces algorithmic oppression of labour to a technical fix and sidesteps the collective struggle actually taking place among riders.
