Foodthink projects, activities, and programmes.
Foodthink is now recruiting for Editor, Communications and Media Operations, and two Programme Officer positions for the Lianhe Programme and Climate Change, seeking new partners in sustainable food and agriculture at its Zhichun Road office in Beijing.
Back in Shen County, Shandong, she found no vegetables tasting like childhood. Through Foodthink’s Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme, she spent three months at Xiqing Farm, Beijing, learning from farmer Wang Xin – from identifying fully ripe strawberries to understanding ecological balance – now planning an ecological apple orchard at home.
From late May to early June, Lüwo Farm in Jingyang endured nearly two weeks of continuous rain. Abro wheat and spelt wheat suffered lodging, sprouting and mould, forcing farm owner Dahei to rush an early harvest, with yield dropping by roughly 20%.
Mr Yuan Qinghua, director of Letian Haiwan Farm in Fengxian, Shanghai, is handy at everything from repairing vehicles and sawing timber to growing vegetables and answering questions. After months interning there, Xiao Mi saw that an ecological farm needs polymaths, not city-style specialists.
In April 2023, nearly a hundred farmers, scientists and grassroots agricultural bureau staff gathered in Suzhou for the Farmer Seed Network’s 10th annual conference to discuss living conservation of farmer varieties, market use and ecological seed certification, and to exchange seeds at a Kunshan organic farm.
Foodthink’s second Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme has connected 21 young people — journalists, programmers, chefs, and university students — with nine ecological farms across the country, where they are rediscovering food and the land through turning soil, raising seedlings, and composting.
More than ten young people in Foodthink’s 2023 cohort in the Ecological Agriculture Placement Programme have given their answers: some to reclaim the childhood taste of vegetables, some to master growing knowledge at the front line, some to understand agriculture and the land anew through their bodies.
Ma Yanwei, a Beijing Normal University ecology master’s graduate, has grown muskmelons in the Tengger Desert for eight years. Lei Tiantian, who left Shanghai, interned on the farm. The three chat under a tree in Alxa about drought, running the farm, and how one melon improves the desert.
Foodthink’s Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme drew nearly a hundred applications. over ten young people with no agricultural background, including Chaoyan, Guojing and Mubai shared why they left IT, finance, academia, catering or pharmaceuticals to learn to farm in the countryside. Fifteen are about to start their farm internships.
Four interns from Foodthink’s first ecological agriculture internship cohort recall at the Open Day how six months working the land — from Yinlin Farm to Yuefeng Island Organic Farm — changed their views on food, labour intensity, and life choices.
