Personal stories and production narratives of smallholders, individual farmers, and family farms.
At the start of this year, four years after moving to the Netherlands, my partner and I finally rented a hectare of land in the province of Utrecht to begin cultivating my own farm. Before deciding to commit to farming, I had interned at several small organic farms across the…
Industrial revitalisation is the top priority of rural revitalisation, as well as the starting point for practical work. Without industry, rural areas struggle to attract people, let alone retain talent; the avenues for farmers to increase their income remain narrow, and cultural activities are difficult to initiate. In promoting industrial…
I. Growing Up with the Flavours of the Loess Plateau I was born in the 1980s and grew up in the mountains of the Loess Plateau. I loved the mountains, the plateau, and the freedom of roaming through hills blanketed in wildflowers. My hometown lies where Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Inner…
In this episode, the Food Talk host travels to Tongxiang, Zhejiang, accompanying Yu Jiangang—a young man who returned to his roots—to visit the village where he was born, raised, and has now returned. They explore the village’s final acre of Hangbai chrysanthemums and the biodiversity and Jiangnan culture that surround…
“I have an idea—though I don’t know if it will be of any use?” Her mother-in-law and the former housekeeper both stared at her. She said, “We are at our busiest in spring, but the autumn is quiet. Why not take this time to trade in Hangbai chrysanthemums? They are…
Foodthink says In the Inner Mongolia region, where the vast majority of herders have transitioned to settled livestock farming, many cases of gastric perforation caused by barbed wire have emerged among cattle and sheep across grasslands now divided by fences. Meanwhile, in the banners of Ordos, where high-yield livestock breeds…
I. Xiao Tang and Xiao Wen’s home is nestled in a valley. The stream there is small, barely half a metre deep, yet it flows year-round and can be found on a map. Flowing south, it joins other waterways several times before feeding into the Ohio River, which runs from…
Author’s Note My husband, Mr Panghu, and I live in a small town in the Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. The local farmers’ market has been running for nearly thirty years, and we have witnessed more than a decade of its history. This series of short pieces aims…
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…
A former Shanghai programmer spent two farm internships in Sichuan learning organic growing from Xuemei and Chen Ying, and is now seeking land in Hebei to begin her own holding.
