Foodthink’s Take 5 June is World Environment Day, and Foodthink continues to monitor the link between global meat consumption and illegal deforestation in the Amazon. At the start of 2024, a joint investigation by the *Hong Kong Free Press* (HKFP) and the non-profit organisation Repórter Brasil revealed that four Hong…
Foodthink Perspective “Is a science geared towards human needs actually possible?” In a modern society where science is equated with progress, this should not even be a question. Yet one of the greatest tragedies of our era is that science—which could be used to help humanity solve poverty, hunger, disease,…
“It’s all political games!” During a visit to Mindanao in the south of the Philippines in April, this was the near-universal response whenever I asked about the government’s rice trade policies. These voices belonged to mayors, government agricultural technicians, and ordinary smallholders who lived off the land. Indeed, in the…
From late last year until April, the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai—a popular tourist destination—was frequently shrouded in a thick haze. On 29 March, Chiang Mai was ranked by IQAir as the most polluted city in the world, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 188, which is 17.4…
I. The Plastic Crisis: Regularly Updated “Microplastics have entered the human brain, and the weight of these particles can even exceed that of a plastic spoon.” Several friends sent me this message a few days ago. Since I started working for an environmental organisation a few years ago, I’ve become…
Foodthink’s Perspective “Unsustainable production and consumption patterns are pushing the planet towards destruction.” This is the opening statement used by the United Nations to introduce Zero Waste Day, observed annually on 30 March. For urban residents in China, the vast majority of single-use plastic waste in daily life is linked…
Foodthink says Since its launch in 2003, the Taiwanese bimonthly magazine *Green Sprouts* has been documenting sustainable food and agricultural practices across the Taiwan Strait and internationally, inspiring and influencing a generation of practitioners. How did the story of *Green Sprouts* begin? How has a magazine that pays no contributor…
Foodthink Commentary On 7 March, Foodthink published an article titled “Plastic Film Pollutes Farmland: The Absurd ‘Power Struggle’ of Competent Authorities”, documenting the plight of a farmer whose land was polluted by plastic film discharged from a nearby processing plant. Despite this, the local ecological environment department and the agricultural…
A selected work from Foodthink’s 2024 Collaborative Creation Project‘Fake Meat Displaces Real Meat: Dining Tables, Herders, and the Amazon’ The English version has been officially published on Sixth Tone, the English-language platform of The Paper, with some content edited from the original. Our thanks to the editors at Sixth Tone…
Foodthink’s Take 21 March is the International Day of Forests, with this year’s theme being ‘Forests: A Precious Source of Food’. Yet, on the other side of the world, the Brazilian beef industry continues to expand at the cost of destroying forests and biodiversity. In the face of international calls…
