Liu Yurong, a farmer from Wangjinzhuang, She County, Hebei, saves, trials and revives dozens of old bean varieties on the dryland terraces in the Taihang Mountains, keeping local varieties alive in food and local customs.
A video claiming China has “not enough rubbish to burn” sparks excitement. Mao Da, environmental history PhD, and Sun Jinghua, director of Friends of Nature’s Waste Reduction Project, believe waste hasn’t shrunk, incinerators have excess capacity, dioxin monitoring is limited, and reduction, reuse and recycling matter more.
After growing beans and running, and experiencing her parents’ final days in the ICU, Grandma Kouzi sees signing a living will to waive cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the use of a ventilator as a way to fight for a natural death.
Zhang Zhiwei works on the mixed agroforestry farm of Louis, a farm owner in the state of Paraná, where bananas, cocoa, turmeric and taro form a farmable forest.
From a private school in the city to Zhaixia Village, Longyan, Fujian Province, a couple born in the 1990s are learning to grow passion fruit and peanuts in terraces surrounded by pesticides, adjusting Natural Farming, and opening a micro-shop to sell ecological products.
A financial media outlet’s former agricultural journalist Xie Xiaodan wrote food as supply-and-demand figures through financial reports, market prices and phone interviews. From pig abscess meat, vegetable prices and a shared-farm vegetable plot, they realised agricultural reporting must leave statements and return to the land.
In Beijing’s downpours and heat, Meituan, Ele.me and JD.com riders are pushed to keep showing up by order assignment, fines and subsidy rules, with pain in their feet, water-damaged phones and losses and risks largely borne by themselves.
A commons in the suburbs of Florence, a student-initiated farmers’ market and an independent certification network extend agroecology from farmland into cities, bringing residents, farmers and consumers together to advance ecological restoration and food sovereignty.
In Pu’er, Yunnan, South American production cuts have kept green bean prices rising for a year, but erratic rainfall and extreme weather still threaten yields. Some coffee farmers are deep-processing beans, planting green manure and shade trees to adapt to climate and seek steadier prices.
Delivery riders often skip lunch to chase orders or cook noodles on the street, missing their children’s meal times. Stomach ailments, depression and cardiovascular risks of gig work are becoming public-health and labour-protection issues the platform economy must respond to.