Farmers’ markets, solidarity economies, community-supported agriculture, local food systems, and PGS.
Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market present “New Year’s Feast Recipes”, days two to seven — six farmers each cooking with their own produce. Huairou Snail Farm’s stir-fried chicken braises a free-range rooster in beer for two hours: when ingredients shine, the cooking does them justice.
Foodthink and Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market serve six consecutive days of “New Year recipes” – Day 2 to Day 7 – six home-style dishes of meat, vegetables and soup made from farming friends’ home-grown ingredients, so every good taste on the New Year table has an honest origin.
Eight Foodthink colleagues worked a 12-hour non-stop shift at Jishi—from veg identification and stock intake to live-stream shopping to communal dish-washing after the lamb soup screening—and encountered the unseen labour and carbon behind cold-chain energy consumption and an annual lease.
Three Foodthink colleagues left their screens for Jishi, the ecological greengrocer in Sanyuanqiao — stacking stock, sorting produce, negotiating with customers over switching to another farm’s tomatoes — and in concrete physical labour rediscovered a tangible feel for life.
Saturday 7 February: eight Foodthink members take over Jishi, the community veg shop at Sanyuanqiao, swapping writing for veg selling. Join us in person or online for a year-end report, food and agriculture sharing session, Chinese New Year live shopping, and a film screening with lamb soup dinner.
At Guangzhou’s Harvest Festival, Foodthink had nearly a hundred readers relay-write eight climate fiction (cli-fi) stories from article titles, screen a documentary on imported beef and lamb hitting the Qinghai pastoral area, and discuss fields and dining tables under extreme weather with fellow growers and documentary filmmakers.
Readers from Beijing, Tokyo, Guangzhou, Chiang Mai and beyond share their everyday lives with the market: hidden-gem stalls, grocery-buying tips, the warmth of exchanges with stallholders—and—squeezed by supermarkets and e-commerce—where the market goes from here.
At Mondeggi commons, over 450 members collectively farm 1,800 mu of land and deliberate democratically; Genuino Clandestino uses independent certification to bypass official procedures. These communities extend agroecology from a cultivation technique into collective action fighting for land and food sovereignty.
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.
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.
