Analysis of national and local agricultural policies, food policies, regulatory changes, and governance mechanisms.
Old Li’s 70 mu of ecological farmland in H Province, guarded fifteen years, lies blanketed by mulch film fragments from a groundnut haulm plant 100 metres away. Spring ploughing slipping; two months of appeals yielded only two departments citing the same law yet deflecting responsibility onto each other.
Li Jidong’s 70 mu of farmland in Luanzhou, Hebei, is blanketed in shredded mulch film from a neighbouring feed-processing plant. The agriculture and environment bureaus cite the same regulations yet each insists the pollution is the other’s to tackle. Spring sowing looms, yet he still cannot sow.
Ren Yingying of Lianxiang Farm was invited by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture to the GFFA in Berlin. The position paper she co-drafted demands breaking multinational corporations’ control over seeds, land and supply chains, promoting agroecology, and safeguarding smallholder farmers’ land and policy-participation rights.
Maize once needed just one round of pesticide; now each crop demands six. The Fall armyworm has pushed farmers onto a “pesticide treadmill”, biological control is too slow, and whether GM maize can break the deadlock remains uncertain.
For four decades, Benedikt Haerlin – Head of the Berlin office of the Future Agriculture Foundation – has been deeply involved in the anti-GM agenda, from driving the EU’s first GM Directive to launching a global advocacy campaign, covering key milestones such as mandatory labelling, Golden Rice and CRISPR/Cas9.
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.
Machinery cannot access small, scattered plots, and straw-incorporation subsidies flow mainly to large-scale farms and machinery operators. Yuan Yong, an agricultural technician in Jianyang, Sichuan, has spent over twenty years in no-till mulching, seeking a way for smallholders to nourish the soil and save money.
Foodthink, supported by Oxfam Hong Kong’s Beijing Office, has launched a survey soliciting practical experience and needs in climate adaptation from rural social organisations. The survey closes on 31 December 2024.
In Ji County (pseudonym) on the North China Plain, agricultural technology extension has passed from government monopoly through market-town retail to project-based governance contracts, leaving more than 21,000 small-scale farmers with nothing but a phone call to get a drone to spray their crops.
