Digital technology, agricultural technology, AI, and biotechnology applications in food and farming.
Qingming is a festival for ancestral worship and tomb-sweeping. This year, Qingming falls on 4 April, which happens to be 404. This brings to mind those articles that have been 404 not found. Last year, several Foodthink articles “disappeared” from our WeChat official account—the highest number in our history. Yet,…
Foodthink’s Perspective Before the Spring Festival, Ren Yingying, a post-90s farmer from Lianxiang Farm in Chengde, Hebei, was invited by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture to attend the Global Forum for Agriculture and Food (GFFA) in Berlin, where she helped draft a position paper for young farmers.…
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.
On 4 February, Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives announced the successful breeding of a genetically modified strain of Blackchin tilapia. These modified tetraploid tilapia produce sterile offspring when mated with naturally occurring diploid tilapia. The government hopes this will curb the spread of the African invasive species and reverse…
Foodthink Perspectives Slowly but surely, the eating habits of the Chinese people—long a source of national pride—are being profoundly reshaped by digital technologies driven by the internet, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. The most apparent change is in how people consume food. According to media reports, 275 million people rely on…
From China’s delivery riders and France’s foie gras to Inner Mongolian herders, seed conservation, Monsanto’s GM disputes and fungal networks, 2024’s books trace how food, land and nature shape everyday life.
Foodthink’s Perspective Some media outlets have dubbed 2024 the “inaugural year of GMO commercialisation” in China. In 2023, 37 varieties of genetically modified maize and 14 varieties of genetically modified soy passed variety certification, and 26 companies were granted permits for the production and operation of GM maize and soy…
Foodthink says As delivery riders face exploitation and pressure, merchants contend with exorbitant commissions, and users worry about the lack of health guarantees for their food, an increasing number of people have begun to criticise and scrutinise platform enterprises. However, beyond mere criticism, can we imagine an alternative platform model?…
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…
Tian Le, founding editor of Foodthink, and other Chinese food and agriculture experts argue that Monsanto’s GM crops have not cut pesticide use or increased yields, and that public breeding systems, seed saving and consumer choice may better support farmers.
