The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) finds that the global food system swallows at least 15% of the world’s fossil fuels and 40% of its petrochemicals—yet the industry’s clean alternatives fall far short of their claims.
Through Foodthink’s Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme, Jianing came to Yinlin Farm in Conghua. Among hens, goats, rain-thinned maize and old lychee trees planted by the older generation, she relearned to recognise the land and the farmers behind the food.
Disaster relief worker Hao Nan retraced the flood’s path through the Xinglong and Miyun disaster areas to reconstruct how flash floods unfolded. Community disaster prevention and mitigation, he finds, has long lacked funding and manpower, with grassroots evacuation timing relying largely on on-the-spot judgement.
Drawing on her organic farming experience in Shengou Village, Taiwan, Kouzi spent four years at Erren Valley practising self-sufficiency – grappling with cogon grass, purifying wastewater with banana plants and water lilies – and ultimately confirmed that humans can be a link that nourishes the land.
In summer 2024, agricultural drone pilots in Heilongjiang faced a harsh reality: pesticide drift compensation disputes, health damage amid a lack of labour protection, and per-mu service fees sliding from ten-odd yuan to 2.5 yuan.
Guizhou sour broth, Shanxi Naotou breakfast soup, Kunming eggplant za, Wuyuan Qigao (Wuyuan steamed rice cake)… Fermentation most vividly reveals a region’s local flavour and customs. This holiday, follow diners’ hometown memories and seek out the tangy aroma in jars and crocks across the country.
Sili partners with agricultural technology stations and social organisations across Yunnan to promote ridging-and-furrowing low-water rice cultivation. From Yilong Lake’s shores to the Hani Rice Terraces, the same approach has grown into different forms, shaped by differences in subsidies, water conditions and varieties.
Beyond the Xibei pre-made meals controversy, small shops that stir-fry to order are being squeezed by central kitchens, local food memories are fading, and exhausted parents and international students may well have long since become unable to do without pre-made meals.
Fish cages shattered, mud crabs all escaped with the seawater, orchards and sugarcane groves blown flat. Farmers in Hailing Island, Taishan and elsewhere, barely ten-odd days from the Mid-Autumn harvest, were ruined overnight. The salinisation left by seawater inundation is even harder to repair in the short term.
In this model village for rural revitalisation, coaches carry visitors along the same route almost every day—yet the scorched paddy bunds beneath the rice ears, scattered fertiliser bags and pesticide bottles, and ever-worsening light pollution never feature in the script.
