Policy, institutional, economic, and technology trends shaping food systems.
A 2023 study by Feng Xiaojun and team at China Agricultural University in a major dairy-farming county in Shandong found family dairy farms surpass large-scale farms on income, import resilience, environment and dairy cow welfare. Smallholder exclusion by dairy processors stems from unequal bargaining power; policy and organisation must combine.
The melamine incident was not the fault of small dairy farmers, nor are large pastures necessarily safer at the production, distribution, and processing stages. With residents’ protein intake already adequate, the nutritional gap between the two types of milk is negligible.
Where farming guarantees a loss and processing a profit, Wuwei’s returned young farmer Yin Fahua makes noodles from purchased gravel-covered Hongguangtou wheat — only to hold the line on pesticide-free ecological farming, and to hold on to that fragrant handful of fried chickpeas along his childhood field edges.
From Qiandongnan to Baoding, from Thailand to the Philippines, seed-saving farmers and seed workers guard old varieties amid the standardised expansion of hybrid seed, questioning who has the right to decide what we grow and what we eat.
Lamb prices have slumped for years and imported frozen meat has flooded the market, trapping generations of Qinghai Lake herders in revolving debt: some sold their yaks at a pittance to deliver food in town; others carry 200,000-yuan loans, hoping each year for sheep prices to rebound.
Zha Shiyire, a Huayao Yi, grew up in a mountain village in Shiping County, Yunnan. Her mother whistled from the bund, calling the wind; the family bent, planting tobacco, reaping rice, shredding radish strips. Farm work is never finished — she never loved it, nor could she loathe it.
Solvent extraction dissolves oil with n-hexane, then subjects it to two rounds of high-temperature decolourisation and deodorisation; solvent residues, trans fat and excess omega-6 are hard to avoid. Nuts, home-pressed oil and low-temperature cooking offer alternatives.
“Scientific farming” in rural Northeast China is shaped largely by agri-supply dealers bundling drones with fertiliser. Maize fell to 1.1 yuan per jin after harvest; farmers spraying twice versus five–six times saw almost no yield difference. More output never brought more income.
Former JD 7Fresh warehouse picker He Siqi spent 31 days in the warehouse: 9 minutes per order, 30 fen per item, 30,000 steps a day, supervisors shouting at any moment, and even on your period, no escape from the freezer.
Zhen Rui’s 450-mu farm in Miyun, farmed for thirteen years, lost all topsoil to flash floods; resuming cultivation in the short term looks hopeless. He temporarily grafted his operation onto a neighbouring farm, while northern farmers still lack systematic insurance and land-planning support against extreme rainfall.
