Personal stories and production narratives of smallholders, individual farmers, and family farms.
After two years at Share Harvest Ecological Farm in Beijing, 1990s-born Qin Xianrong returned to Dadugang, Xishuangbanna, to grow pineapples, passion fruit, and macadamia nuts on a four-hectare hillside—no fertilisers, no pesticides, near-wild management.
Last week, the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai region suffered a historically rare series of blows, being hit by two consecutive typhoons of Force 10 or higher within just four days. Around 7:30 am on 16 September 2024, Typhoon Bebinca made landfall along the coast of the Lin-gang Special Area in…
Unlike last year’s brief Typhoon Doksuri downpour, this year’s relentless North China rain has nearly wiped out leafy vegetables for Liu Gang, owner of Xiaoliushu Farm in Shunyi. Autumn planting is nearly a month late, and vegetable prices have risen 40% nationwide.
Xia Lili and her son Lemao savour a rare summer crop of old-variety yellow peas from Jinzi’s one-person farm in Xiaojin County, Aba Prefecture, with simple pea rice recipes for summer and winter.
As a foodie, I don’t eat meat, but I cannot live without beans—soybeans, mung beans, red beans, black beans, and chickpeas. Although I avoid buying from shops as much as possible and try to eat what I grow myself, the consumption of soy products at Evil Person Valley has always…
Editor’s Note In the previous instalment of this column, Sister Yiguo showed us how she uses her ‘Little Dining Table’ in the city to provide her friends with wholesome, delicious meals. Even more dedicated than her is the producer of the rice served at that table—Chen Ying, the owner of…
I. Devastating Yield Loss: The ‘Super Lean Year’ for Lychees Conghua District in Guangzhou is one of the primary lychee-producing regions in Guangdong. July is the peak harvest season, but some sights that were once commonplace are vanishing. Where branches used to bow under the weight of fruit, there are…
Foodthink Says The rainfall in the south this year has been distressing; we have not only seen the devastation in the news but have also received a steady stream of bad news from our farming friends about reduced yields. Our old friend Kouzi, based in Fujian, has seen almost total…
Editor’s Note In the Yulin community of Chengdu, a vegetable “blind box” from farmer-friend Hu Xuemei brought a little “shock” and an unexpected change to Xia Lili, the cook of the Little Dining Table. This is the fourth instalment of “Master One-Pot’s Little Dining Table”, which will discuss Xia Lili’s…
I once wrote ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ and, in practice, I found that a modest plot of land is quite enough to sustain all my life’s needs. So, for someone like me living on such a plot, how much living space is actually necessary? How large should…
