Analysis of agricultural product prices, supply chains, corporate behavior, and industry trends.
In media reports over the last few years, it has been common for street vendors to be fined for selling produce such as chives and celery with pesticide residues exceeding legal limits, with penalties ranging from 5,000 to tens of thousands of yuan. The performance of high-end supermarkets and premium…
Those who have studied permaculture will likely be familiar with the name Sepp Holzer. As a pioneer of permaculture in practice, Holzer is almost a household name in Austria, and his book, *Permaculture*, has served as an introductory guide for enthusiasts across the globe. This June, I travelled deep into…
Foodthink says Foodthink has hosted several reading groups focused on fermentation. During the process of selecting books, we noticed something: while fermentation culture is booming among foodie circles abroad, why hasn’t it taken off in China? This is a sentiment shared by the publishing professionals featured in this article: China…
New pests and diseases, unpredictable markets and dawn-to-dusk work show why smallholders in a Chinese county favour traditional white lotus over subsidised greenhouse vegetables, whose higher returns come at the cost of family life.
Online sales have carried Yunnan’s toxic Jianshouqing wild mushroom beyond Yunnan, where unfamiliar diners face rising poisoning cases, while local eating depends on careful cooking, family caution and a light-hearted attitude to ‘little people’.
Northwest China is becoming warmer and wetter, but is this a blessing or a curse for local agriculture? Many people’s first instinct is that becoming ‘wetter’ is a positive development for the arid inland Northwest—after all, more water should mean more crops can be grown. However, the impact of climate…
Foodthink says In 1924, Fei Dasheng and the teachers and students of the Jiangsu Provincial Girls’ Sericulture School arrived at Kaixiangong Village in Wujiang County and established the Silk Improvement Society, which has now existed for nearly a century. Later, the experiences of this cooperative were documented by Fei Dasheng’s…
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…
Recently, news that Singapore is introducing grading for sugary drinks and an imminent ban on advertising for milk tea and juices has sparked heated debate in China. In truth, Singapore is not the first nation to intervene in the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages. Over a decade ago, policymakers began introducing…
Over the last forty years, and particularly the last decade, China’s food system has undergone seismic shifts. Many of us have observed and experienced this: traditional wet markets are quietly vanishing from mainstream life, replaced by fresh-food e-commerce and online shopping as the primary sources for urban dwellers; cheap delivery…
