The environmental and soil impacts of agricultural inputs and pollution issues.
I. Airborne Plastic Blight With spring ploughing imminent, Li Jidong, a farmer from Nuomizhuang Village in Luanzhou, Hebei, found himself unable to plough his land. Across his 70 mu of farmland, fragmented pieces of plastic mulch of various sizes, blown in from a nearby farm, were scattered everywhere. They covered…
From Liuzhou in Guangxi to Kunming in Yunnan, fall armyworm in the maize fields of farmer Old Lei and Yanta Village farmers has made spraying more frequent and costly, drawing out issues of climate warming, pesticide resistance and genetically modified maize.
Foodthink’s Take “Fungi are ubiquitous, yet easily overlooked.” These life forms, distinct from plants and animals, exist as a mysterious and powerful yet often ignored presence, offering clues on the path towards human exploration and coexistence with nature. How do fungi and plants prosper together? As the link between plants…
Autumn harvest has arrived once more, and the question of whether straw should be burned has again become a focal point of public debate. In October, several areas in Hunan saw a rise in unregulated open-air straw burning, which worsened air pollution in some regions and led to the provincial…
As global warming intensifies, the Fall Armyworm has emerged as a new risk threatening global agricultural production. In the summer of 2019, during our fieldwork in Jixian (a pseudonym) on the North China Plain, the arrival of the Fall Armyworm put the entire county on a “wartime footing”. The Fall…
I. An Unexpected Village Party Secretary “Ecological farming?” Fan Hanquan, who had his back to us, suddenly turned around. “I want to try it.” I was slightly surprised. It was 23 February 2022. I remember it so clearly because since I entered E-Ren Valley in 2021, he has been the…
Inspired by Nichole, a US permaculture practitioner in Texas, Zhang Yiqing learns permaculture, stops using herbicides and chemical fertilisers, grows food on large suburban front- and back-yard lawns, and reflects on American lawn culture.
From saccharin and Agent Orange to Roundup and genetically modified seeds, its 115-year history shows how new agribusiness products created fresh problems while US regulation arrived only after harm.
Foodthink’s Perspective 15 August is National Ecology Day. When we speak of ecology and biodiversity, our thoughts immediately turn to wildlife or the Amazon rainforest; few consider the mutual influence between agriculture and ecosystems. In fact, over the last 70 years, the expansion and intensification of agriculture have increasingly degraded…
Recently, the scandal involving coal-to-oil tankers contaminated with edible oil sparked a public outcry, once again bringing food safety and public health to the forefront of public concern. In reality, safety hazards stemming from food have always been present. In March this year, a study published in *Nature Communications* titled…
