Take a Small Step First, Then Talk About the Bigger Picture | Open Call for Food-and-Agriculture Climate Action

The Earth is on the verge of breaching the 1.5 °C warming red line. Eighty-four percent of the world’s corals are bleaching — the largest and most severe bleaching event on record. The melting of Arctic permafrost may accelerate the warming process. We are triggering the first climate tipping point.

No one is an island. In 2025 alone, Chinese agriculture has been hit by a succession of record-breaking extreme weather events. Foodthink has reported on the following:

☔️ Half a year of drought, half a year of floods: Guangxi farmers paint record floodlines on their walls;

☀️ A drought once in sixty years: farmers in Guanzhong, Shaanxi, worry over watering their wheat — “The more grain we grow, the poorer we become”;

⛈️ At four in the morning, a 400-mu farm in Miyun, Beijing, is swallowed by floods;

🌾 Spring drought deepens: farmers in Yunnan turn to upland rice;

💨 On the eve of harvest, Typhoon Huajiasha devastates cage aquaculture and fruit growing in Yangjiang, Guangdong;

⚡️ Extraordinary disasters have arrived, yet our response still amounts to “Shennong tasting a hundred herbs”;

🌽 Endless autumn rain turns maize mouldy — will northern farmers need grain dryers as standard?

The impact of climate change on what we eat extends far beyond how farmers and their land endure extreme heat, drought, flooding and spreading pests. It is equally visible in rising vegetable prices in cities, vegetables gone bitter on the tongue, and the soaked-through, blistered soles of food-delivery riders. When a heatwave collides with a downpour amid the food-delivery wars, how is the risk of getting a hot meal to a customer’s door shifted onto the rider? When extreme weather becomes the new normal and outdoor work grows ever more hazardous, do we need new mechanisms for sharing the risk?

Of course, from field to table, climate change does not only bring hardship. The warming and humidification of the north, for example, has enabled more “southern vegetables” to be “grown in the north”; rising accumulated temperature is pushing wine-growing regions further north. In short: the climate has changed, and so must we. The key question is how we rebuild resilience — turning crisis into opportunity — amid climate patterns that deviate ever further from the norm. The answer lies in diverse, local and equitable practices on the ground.

This has always been Foodthink’s guiding philosophy. Since the launch of the first round of the Lianhe Programme small action grants in 2019, we have supported three rounds totalling 25 partners, helping them organise agroecology training, conduct food-education programmes, and run projects rooted in the land and community — farmers’ markets, community seed banks and more (see the selected projects for round one, round two and round three). Two further rounds of the Lianhe Programme have supported content creation in the food and agriculture sector.

In September 2025, Foodthink published the research report “Pathways for Rural Social Organisations to Respond to Climate Change”, which found that the core of climate resilience lies in empowering the people and communities most directly affected by climate change. This empowerment is not merely about technological advances but more about mobilising the resources, knowledge and experience a community already has, and building relationships of deep mutual trust. Moreover, building agricultural resilience requires safeguarding the well-being and dignity of producers — that is, of farmers.

In recent years, the intersection of climate change and agriculture has seen a flood of new buzzwords: climate-smart agriculture, regenerative agriculture, agrivoltaics, AI-powered agriculture, zero-carbon villages — and low-carbon agriculture has even been written into the 2026 No. 1 Central Document. Yet beneath each of these seemingly perfect labels, it is rare to hear the voice of a real person, let alone concrete methods that farmers on the ground can actually use. We hope to explore climate solutions rooted in the land, grounded in real needs, and capable of activating the inner strength of communities.

With this in mind, Foodthink is launching the sixth round of the Lianhe Programme small action grants, supporting local solutions for agrifood-system transformation in the context of climate change. Selected applicants will receive funding of ¥5,000–¥30,000, along with communications and professional resources. For projects that do not receive funding but are already underway or have concrete ideas, we will also match them with communications resources and channels, help connect them with peers, pioneers and experts, so that these projects can take root and reach a wider audience — enriching society’s concrete understanding of what resilience looks like, one vivid, living example at a time.

Foodthink looks forward to seeing and supporting your action!

 – Eligibility – 

 – Application Timeline and Method – 

 – Reviewing Experts – 

Du Ling | Director, Chengdu Shuguang Community Development Capacity Building Centre

Meng Fanqiao | Professor, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University; Director, Environmental Impact Assessment Centre, China Agricultural University
Liu Juan | Associate Professor, College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University; Researcher, Beijing Rural Revitalisation and Urban-Rural Integrated Development Innovation Centre

Li Dajun | Director of Industry Development Programme, Beijing Heyi Green Public Benefit Foundation

Kong Lingyu | Programme Director, Foodthink

Partners in Guangdong are encouraged to prioritise applications to the “Greater Bay Area Climate Action Small Grants”, jointly launched by the Guangdong Qianhe Community Public Welfare Foundation and the Guangdong Zhushui Yunshan Nature Conservation Foundation. Foodthink will also liaise with the project team to avoid duplicate funding.

Co-ordination: Lingyu

Project management: ZX