Two and a half years as an agricultural journalist, yet I still ‘cannot see’ food
However, I soon discovered that most of our topics were derived from listed companies’ announcements and financial reports. Performance targets required me to produce a dozen or more pieces a month, which meant the vast majority of my reporting was done via phone or WeChat, with the articles needing to be finished the same day. Field trips for in-person interviews were a rare occurrence.
Consequently, it came as no surprise that even though I was writing about “eating” every single day, I still couldn’t “see” the food—corporate financial reports only describe macro conditions. These descriptions are incredibly vague; relying solely on the three primary financial statements (namely the balance sheet, profit and loss statement, and cash flow statement) cannot explain how food is produced, processed, consumed, or discarded along the way. I often wondered: was I actually working as a journalist?
I. The Invisible Pig Abscesses
Still determined to find where their pork ended up, I continued digging through data and unexpectedly stumbled upon a lead.
On a short-video platform, someone was complaining: “You can’t finish trimming the abscesses off the front legs of their pigs.” They were talking about that very company. Someone replied to the comment, “Too many injections.” Another added, “The abscess meat is collected and fed to dogs.”
Their identities weren’t hard to guess; they were almost all slaughterhouse workers. In the process of slaughtering pigs, there is a step called carcass trimming. This is where parts of the pig unsuitable for human consumption are cut away and become waste meat. Some supermarkets and butchers then further refine the cuts before sale.
“Injections” refers to vaccinations. If a pig is slaughtered before the vaccine has been fully absorbed, abscesses form on its body. This is inevitably the result of farming enterprises chasing excessive production efficiency—increasing efficiency is the primary way the livestock industry protects its profit margins during a market downturn.
For a time, I didn’t have the energy to pursue it. So, I chose to set it aside and submit the story first.
During those two years, I spent most of my time writing these kinds of macro-agricultural pieces. Writing about large corporations is indeed excellent professional training; tracking business shifts and market challenges daily allows one to quickly grasp industry trends, and business is a vital link in understanding how society functions.
Yet, the more I wrote about big companies, the more of a layman I became regarding actual agriculture. Ultimately, many of my reports could not break free from the framework of macro-data analysis and supply-and-demand discussions.
That is why I was actually excited the moment I discovered the “abscesses”. No one had written about this lead. Even from a pragmatic perspective, if I could get to the bottom of it, perhaps the company’s PR team would finally take notice of me. In the past, communicating with them had been a struggle; they were like “the living dead” in my contacts list—no matter how many calls or WeChat messages I sent, they ignored me. It was only after a colleague wrote a piece that “touched” them that we managed to establish a tentative line of communication.
In the end, however, I didn’t follow the lead, likely because I was intimidated by the difficulty. Regardless, the resources at my disposal weren’t enough to help me find people in the slaughter chain to interview, or to actually enter a slaughterhouse to find answers. And the deadline for my next story was already looming.
II. When the Journalist Hits a Downward Cycle
Another example is the meat duck industry, where the duck meat itself is less valuable than the by-products. Because it is cheap and needs a sales outlet, some people sell it masquerading as beef or mutton. One report even mentioned that much of this duck meat eventually ended up in contract catering for construction site workers. In this era where meat, eggs, and milk are not scarce, I realised for the first time that the consumption of these staples can also be used to stratify people.
From this perspective, had I not become an agricultural journalist, I might never have noticed the price fluctuations in the wet market, nor would I have wondered where ingredients came from or who they were sold to when buying groceries online or ordering takeaways. Yet, to question why people have stopped buying milk or why some eat cheap duck meat is, in itself, a kind of “let them eat cake” detachment.
We have a standard reporting framework, one element of which is observing price fluctuations. Price is a direct lever; it relates to the macro market while reflecting the daily consumption of every individual. Price volatility is often caused by a supply-demand imbalance. Unluckily, I entered the agricultural field exactly during a downward price cycle, characterised by oversupply and declining consumption. The surplus stemmed from optimistic expectations during the upward cycle; people seemed to think the market would grow infinitely, and almost everyone increased their investment, envisioning high future returns. But the cold reality is that upward cycles end, and people downgrade their consumption.
But actual farming and pig rearing clearly do not fall into this category. Every earnings season, the revenue of those agricultural companies often fails to match the profits of tech or industrial firms. Most agricultural companies do not face consumers directly, have little need for brand building, and thus no need to collaborate with the media. Coupled with the fact that my derivative articles truly had no readership—my traffic was always at rock bottom—I eventually lost my job.
III. Can Standardisation Solve Everything?
This overcomes the traditional agricultural struggle of being at the mercy of the elements and the difficulty of non-standardised products, thereby reducing their operational challenges. For the consumer, standardisation means that buying fruit is no longer like opening a ‘blind box’; you won’t find the taste wonderful one time, only for it to be different the next.
I have seen similar concepts in orchards in Zhaotong, Yunnan, and Pinggu, Beijing. Not only are the row and plant spacing uniform, but the trees themselves are pruned into identical shapes, resembling a military formation, ensuring every single berry receives the same amount of sunlight. The fruit is also graded according to standards, with specific machinery sorting the produce to ensure consistency in size, shape, and even sweetness.
I have even experienced a smart tractor worth millions. While we are still debating whether autonomous driving is safe in cities, this technology has already found a perfect application—large-scale farmland. If Jeremy Clarkson had bought a tractor with smart driving assistance instead of a Lamborghini tractor, he wouldn’t have ploughed his land so crookedly to begin with.
It is the same in the livestock industry; today’s farming enterprises can use sensors to know precisely how much feed each pig has consumed and calculate how much weight that feed has added. This kind of precision management can effectively reduce feeding costs.
When I first entered agricultural reporting, I too was filled with excitement at these stories. I believed that through technological means, agriculture could overcome its dependence on the weather and eliminate all uncertainty, eventually eradicating hunger and allowing everyone to eat better.
In reality, Chinese urban consumers are already enjoying this convenience: living in Beijing, there is a stable supply of fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the four seasons; you can have groceries delivered to your door, order a takeaway if you don’t feel like cooking, or simply find a nearby restaurant…
While basic survival needs seem to be met with ease, the act of ‘eating’ has become increasingly detached. We can no longer see the food, nor can we see the process of its production, and waste is no longer something to be ashamed of. The adage ‘Who knows the meal on the plate, every grain is hard-earned’ has become a fragile moral constraint, one that requires the government-led ‘Clean Plate Campaign’ to reinforce.
As a consumer, perhaps more transparent information can alleviate this anxiety. But as a journalist, as a link in the chain of information delivery, I feel even more powerless. Companies speak of scaling up, direct sourcing, contract farming, and QR code traceability… For the most part, I can only trust their business judgements and solutions, becoming a tool for their marketing.
Yet I cannot wholeheartedly embrace that commercial world. Even logically, large-scale production does not truly equate to safety; it only means that problematic food will appear on a larger scale. When coupled with a massive agricultural distribution system, the scope of the impact becomes even wider.
I also feel a certain unease. In the past, a friend who raised cattle told me that in his hometown, the Dalhan Maoming’an United Banner in Baotou, many people viewed returning home to raise cattle as a safe haven. Today, “returning to the land to farm” is a popular topic for the media. But if they return and manage their agriculture in this manner, the costs will be astronomical, and they will once again be subjected to the cyclical fluctuations of produce prices. Is returning to farm really a viable way out? If smallholders all exit agriculture, will there truly be a better life for them in the city?
4. My Experimental Plot
Of course, I didn’t recoup the costs, but I was able to deepen my understanding of the field I report on through first-hand experience.
At the end of July, when the crops were at their peak growth, I went on a business trip for a total of nine days. Before leaving, I asked a friend to help me water the plot. Later, seeing the weather forecast that Beijing would have continuous rain during that period, I simply told my friend not to bother.
Upon my return, Beijing faced several days of rain, leaving the ground exceptionally muddy and impassable, so I couldn’t check on my little plot for about half a month. I imagined that nature would look after those vegetables for me.
What I faced instead was a complete shambles: all the leafy greens were dead, the chillies had rotted, and only a few tomatoes survived, and only just. Only the mint and perilla, which have not undergone long-term human domestication and breeding, remained vibrant after the torrential rain.
Throughout August, the weather was hot and rainy; even with replanting, not a single vegetable survived. It wasn’t just me; because of the weather, commercial vegetable growers suffered losses as severe as mine. Last summer, vegetable prices soared; in the face of climate change, novices and veterans were almost equally vulnerable.
I didn’t just face the challenges of the weather; my body also took a beating from the farming.
When I first started, I decided not to weed, as I had heard that keeping weeds provides more cover for the soil and that preserving root systems reduces damage to the growth environment of soil microorganisms.
But almost everyone who passed by would ask why I wasn’t weeding. One day, an elderly neighbour stopped to ask me the same thing, and I enthusiastically shared the knowledge I’d acquired.
He shot back, asking if I’d seen it on Douyin. His implication was clear: I had been fooled by Douyin. I continued to defend my position, which only irritated him. I failed to mend the neighbourhood relationship, and after that, whenever we met at the farm, he ignored me entirely.
Eventually, I succumbed to the pressure and spent a long time battling the weeds. Because I spent so much time crouching in the fields weeding, my knees suffered, and they only fully recovered this summer.
Beyond the psychological healing, farming didn’t actually help me as an agricultural journalist; ultimately, I have to return to the professional level to find my answers.
There are new angles in the field of agriculture: the “new farmers” returning home, consumer enterprises intervening in the upstream planting process, or even new agricultural products appearing in hotpots and milk teas… there are many such stories. However, can these angles truly capture the essence of agriculture?
While writing about Shine Muscat grapes, I met a woman. Once I had finally convinced her I was a journalist, she became instantly agitated, cursing the media as unscrupulous. She said her family had been cheated out of a lot of money in the construction business, and she had turned to Shine Muscat grapes to secure her livelihood, only to encounter a market crash. To her, my interview was like rubbing salt into her wounds.
I had made a mess of things that day. I tried to make amends via WeChat and text messages, and it took some effort to calm her down. She even sent me her husband’s number, suggesting I talk to him instead.
I didn’t contact them again and deleted our entire conversation. By then, I had gathered enough material from other growers, and the angle of the story was simple: to write about how the Shine Muscat variety had failed. There was no need to disturb them further. Besides, a superficial story cannot carry such profound family pain.
Over the past two and a half years, many such moments have forced me to reflect on what kind of agricultural reporting I want to do, and how to do it.
I occasionally think of my former boss. He said our advantage is that we spend every day immersed with people in the industry, allowing us to understand industry changes more promptly. These words struck a chord with me, and I took them as gospel.
Since I started covering agriculture and writing for two and a half years, the face of agriculture has appeared increasingly complex to me. It is not just about business models; it is about livelihoods. It consists not only of smart agriculture but also its traditional side. I am increasingly reluctant to report on agriculture within a purely commercial framework.
As for how to do it, I still don’t have the answer. I just know I can no longer write about agriculture from the perspective of an outsider. The only method I can think of is my former boss’s advice: spend every day immersed with people in the industry. I need to get even closer.
In an age where everyone can eat their fill, agriculture receives too little attention, far less than the booming tech sector. Yet, agriculture is undergoing earth-shattering changes and is equally a “goldmine” for news, with vast spaces waiting to be explored and reported.
If you share the same confusion as the author of this article and wish to gain a deeper understanding of the operational logic and details behind our food, and obtain more first-hand information about agriculture, you are welcome to join the Food and Agriculture Media Workshop organised by Foodthink in early September. Foodthink will invite media professionals who have long reported on food, agriculture, and the environment to share their experience and methods, and the author of this article will also be there to exchange ideas with everyone.
Editor: Auntie Xiong