A Note from Foodthink Since the launch of the recruitment for the second intake of Foodthink’s Ecological Farming Internship Programme, we have received many applications. Thank you all for your interest! We have been getting in touch with suitable candidates and conducting detailed interviews. By the end of this month,…
During the summer and autumn of 2021, Beijing experienced an exceptionally long flood season lasting 122 days, while precipitation across six northern provinces and municipalities—including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi—reached its highest level since 1961. That same autumn, I began an online master’s programme in natural resources and…
Foodthink’s Perspective As the commercial seed industry continues to grow, heirloom seeds and ancestral varieties are becoming increasingly marginalised. Their disappearance is not only a loss of biodiversity but also signals the gradual decay of diverse local culinary traditions and cultures. However, a growing number of seed savers are now…
This episode was recorded in the Alxa desert of Inner Mongolia by Qihua, Foodthink’s lead on climate change and ecological smallholder research, along with two guests. In late August 2022, the three of them sat under a large tree in an oasis within the Tengger Desert; you may hear the…
At the end of 2021, I left Shanghai and the new media industry, where I had lived and worked for eight years, to embark on a gap year, feeling a more liberating force calling to me from deep within. I believe the seed for this was planted when I read…
The theme of today’s Central Document No. 1 is, unsurprisingly, rural revitalisation once again. With rural affairs having been the focus of this document for twenty consecutive years, the media, the public, and the government are all under pressure to innovate and ‘find some highlights’. In recent years, the involvement…
In 2021, the first season of the reality documentary *Clarkson’s Farm*, featuring a grumpy old man trying his hand at farming, earned a high score of 9.6 on Douban. This February 10th, the second season is set to premiere. Why has Jeremy Clarkson—the wealthy old man and former host of…
Foodthink’s Take How exactly is agriculture being affected by climate change? Foodthink has published a series of articles on this topic. Today, we share the insights of a grower on the front line. Zhao Fei graduated from the College of Agriculture at China Agricultural University, after which he joined Pingren…
At the end of 2021, while still working for an internet company in Shanghai, I came across a recruitment notice for Foodthink’s ‘Ecological Agriculture Intern Programme’, and something about it really resonated with me. Once my application was accepted, I chose ‘Meeting Farm’ in Meishan, Sichuan, as my destination. As…
For most people, 2022 felt like a rollercoaster, full of highs and lows. The team at Foodthink felt much the same; our ambitions, which in 2021 had been to venture far and wide, shifted towards a state of constant apprehension and anxiety.
