Farmers’ markets, solidarity economies, community-supported agriculture, local food systems, and PGS.
Miyun’s Feiniao yu Mingchong founder Yifang, Xiao Yunsheng of Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, host Xiao Jing – three mothers on what a farm can give children. A seed planted, a peach ripening naturally, uncertainty of “relying on the heavens for a living”: a sense of reality no desk offers.
Pesticides and pesticide residues, antibiotics, food delivery waste, the disappearance of wet markets, Community Supported Agriculture – the four consumer rights of safety, information, choice and voice all have specific, actionable pathways in food consumption.
On a hundred-acre farm beside a creek in the Ohio River valley, Xiaotang and Xiaowen grow shiitake using the sawdust cultivation method to supply about ten local restaurants, while underground, mycelium quietly intertwines tree roots, wildflowers, and everyday life.
Xiaowen clones mycelium on agar plates in a little cabin by the stream; husband Xiaotang hoists ninety-pound oyster mushroom columns bare-handed. While button mushrooms in North American supermarkets haven’t changed their genes in forty years, the couple guards a hand-powered workshop, outside the assembly line.
Foodthink is collecting feedback from event participants for the first time. The 5 most constructive responses will receive a set of Douban Nature Series tableware, to improve the quality and experience of our future events.
