Grassland herders, grazing systems, ecological change, and livelihood issues.
Following a Urumqi screening of the documentary Whose Table, Whose Pasture, livestock experts, university students, community builders and retired forestry and grassland officials shared their views on pasture degradation, pastoralist income and food systems.
Following imported frozen beef and mutton into Qinghai Lake’s pastoral areas, the film documents the impact of falling purchase prices on herders and meat traders. Screening 12 June at Zhejiang University’s Department of Sociology, with a post-screening discussion between the department’s food systems researchers and Foodthink.
On 26 May 2026 at 19:00, Foodthink will screen “Whose Dining Table, Whose Rangeland” in Nanjing, a documentary tracing how imported frozen meat has driven down cattle and sheep purchase prices around Qinghai Lake and altered pastoralists’ livelihoods. Registration is free for Nanjing viewers.
Foodthink screens the field-research documentary “Whose Table, Whose Pasture” at Yonghe Lane Community, Tianshan District, Ürümqi, documenting herders around Qinghai Lake as imported frozen meat floods the market, livestock prices plummet and livelihoods buckle. Post-screening, local organisations and guests discuss whether Xinjiang’s pastoral areas face similar upheaval.
Tulan and her family, herders in Harigaobi gacha, East Ujimqin Banner, Inner Mongolia, remain committed to raising traditional Ujimqin sheep through seasonal nomadic herding. With just clear water and salt, the clean fragrance of the grassland rises from the pot.
Grassland contraction means Kazakh herders’ cattle and sheep can no longer rely on haymaking in hayfields alone to get through winter; watering, harvesting, planting and market purchases all push up winter costs.
Wang Sheng, 200,000 yuan in debt, secretly grazes in a Qinghai Lake no-grazing zone, borrowing new loans to repay old ones for seven or eight years; Tenzin Zongzhi left the pasture to deliver food but plans to herd again within months.
Several young directors at the World Nomadic Film Festival in Jiagedaqi, deep in the Greater Khingan Range, film the shocks facing pastoral areas: imported meat driving prices down, fenced pastures replacing the life of following water and grass, and grandchildren who can no longer speak their elders’ Mongolian.
An ordinary employee at a McDonald’s in Shanghai’s Jing’an District earns 19 yuan per hour, rising to 21 yuan only after 1,000 hours. When takeaway orders surge, riders are pressed by the platform, staff are pressed by orders, and leftovers are thrown away after closing.
Foodthink’s Lianhe Programme-funded “Fake Meat” Drives Out Real Meat drew over a hundred reader comments, from “herders just want higher prices” to “rainforest burning across the ocean concerns every living creature”. Imported Brazilian beef’s link to Amazon deforestation is far more complex than “nothing to do with us”.
