Policy, institutional, economic, and technology trends shaping food systems.
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”.
In a Jing’an District McDonald’s, part-time pay is 19 yuan an hour — just two yuan more after 1,000 hours. Five stations, each worker locked to their post; rainy-day delivery surges send riders and staff unraveling together. The assembly line cuts apart workers’ shared lives.
In an exclusive interview with Foodthink at the 3rd International Agrobiodiversity Congress, veteran BBC journalist Dan Saladino moves from Sichuan Red-Mouth Glutinous Rice to the revival of British farmhouse cheese and the Perry pear, discussing how to safeguard diversity in the industrial food system.
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.
On World Rainforest Day, Foodthink has compiled over a hundred reader comments via Jieshengzhi on “Fake Meat” Drives Out the Real Thing: from “Brazil’s deforestation has nothing to do with us” to “Forest-burning concerns every creature”, laying bare the full consumer-side divide over imported beef’s environmental cost.
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.
Young Chinese people on a Working Holiday visa deliver food on foot in Melbourne, earning over 1,200 AUD a month; the platform sets no delivery deadline, and customers say “take it easy” – here, individual workers are seen and respected.
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.
A joint investigation by Repórter Brasil and Hong Kong Free Press found that four Hong Kong-based companies purchased beef offal from 163 Beef, a slaughterhouse that repeatedly bought cattle from the Heller family farm, charged with deforesting 6,500 hectares.
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.
