Organic production, sustainable farming methods, and agroecological practices.
Departing from Beijing Chaoyang Station, a high-speed rail journey of just over an hour brought us to Pingquan North Station in Chengde, Hebei, where Ren Yingying, the proprietress of Lianxiang Farm, was already waiting for us. Petite with her hair swept back, Yingying looked sharp and energetic, with a relaxed…
In Evil Valley, farmer Kouzi uses no pesticides and, though apples cannot be home-grown and pumpkins are beset by fruit flies, still learns to cherish those limited harvests.
Before starting my internship at Letian Bay Farm, I had imagined that the customers here were all fervent environmentalists; otherwise, there was no way to explain why these urbanites would travel to the countryside. In an age where everyone is flocking to the cities, taking a path in the opposite…
Early autumn finally brought the first self-reliant harvest since the inception of Evil Valley. I particularly want to stress the “self-reliant” part: from transplanting the seedlings to the final harvest, I handled every step myself, taking complete charge of the whole operation single-handedly. Having moved into Evil Valley in…
Taking the high-speed rail from the south exit of Xizhimen, we crossed the peaks of the Yanshan Mountains and arrived at the Huailai Basin. Though it had been less than an hour since leaving Beijing, the scenery had already completely transformed—into wide, flat plains and stretches of maize fields and…
A Note from Foodthink 11 November 2021, during the Fengnian Festival in Guangzhou, Foodthink interviewed two musicians from the band Wayna, Banong and Shibashi. This conversation became the first episode of the “Food Talk” podcast. Beyond this, during the early stages of “Food Talk”, Banong generously composed the intro and…
“Whenever I arrive in a foreign land, the first thing I do is ask the locals where the market is.” In June this year, mirroring the experiences of food writer Han Liangyi in *Wandering Through the World’s Markets*, I embarked on a journey of markets in Barcelona, Spain. Of the…
Recently, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, still reeling from the “heaviest rainfall in 60 years”, has begun to experience high temperatures following the start of autumn. This summer has truly been a case of “deep waters and scorching fires”, once again demonstrating the severity of extreme weather events to the public. While…
Key Takeaways The profitability of the practice has given rise to ‘professional counterfeit hunting’. After the Food Safety Law introduced a punitive damages system, increasing compensation from three-fold to ten-fold, a surge of professional hunters entered the food sector, where there was previously little to be gained. While this has…
Two summers ago, I graduated with a Master’s in Sociology and joined a leading real estate company to work in agriculture, feeling a mix of anticipation and anxiety. Three seemingly unrelated paths converged in this way; my decision to veer away from the mainstream career trajectory left my family and…
