Long-time readers of Foodthink will certainly be familiar with the name “Grandma Kouzi”. Since 2021, this woman in her sixties has chosen to move to “Villain’s Valley” in Fujian. There, she built her own home and worked the land herself, carving a sanctuary out of the wilderness to explore a…
“Save our rice!” “IRRI, get out!” In October 2023, these angry chants echoed across multiple farmers’ protests in the Philippines. The protests targeted the 6th International Rice Congress, hosted by the International Rice Research Institute (hereafter IRRI). Against the backdrop of climate change and the push for agricultural emission reductions,…
Foodthink Author Kouzi Farmer trekker, village brewing master. Full-time foodie, part-time farmer, amateur writer. Readers familiar with me may have already noticed: I don’t stir-fry. Indeed, Villain’s Valley doesn’t even have a wok. Of course, my one-square-metre kitchen is equipped with a full set of appliances—pots, steamers,…
My grandfather was the fourth child of his family, born in 1933. He lost his mother as a child and his father as a youth, weathering years of famine. He was a farmer throughout his life, and for a time, a cotton dresser. In his later years, his dreams grew…
I. The buyers didn’t come this year On 13 December 2023, in Huichang County, Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province—the heart of the Gannan navel orange production area—Liao Hai, born in the nineties, and his mother, Aunt Zou, were preparing to start harvesting. Early that morning, his mother had gathered over a dozen…
In 2016, I had a few failed attempts at grocery shopping at Sanyuanli Market. I only returned recently to visit an exhibition and found that the market had long since found its true calling: as an art installation. Returning after seven years, Sanyuanli has become polished and glamorous. To promote…
Foodthink’s Perspective In October this year, Foodthink partnered with dozens of farmers’ markets, eco-farms, fermentation artisans, restaurants, publishing houses, and non-profit organisations to launch the ‘Ferment Awakening Festival’. In November, we hosted four book club sessions centred on Sandor Katz’s *The Art of Fermentation*. Our guest for the first session…
In this episode, we explore the wonderful world of cheese—the ultimate fermented food—and share the story of Liu Yang, the founder of Bule Cheese and a true Chinese cheese artisan. A Beijinger with a background in IT, Liu Yang stumbled upon the art of stirring milk and making cheese while…
In the first part of ‘Notes on an Internship in a Desert Oasis’, I tried to lean into my professional instincts as a business journalist to explore the operational struggles of an ecological farm. But in truth, during my two months interning at the Zhiliangtian Farm in Alashan, my daily…
In May, I quit my job and left Beijing for a while, heading to the Zhiliangtian Ecological Farm in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, where I lived for two months. To my surprise, I spent every single day of my first month there drinking. Two-thirds of the beer in the farm’s coffee…
