Farmers’ markets, solidarity economies, community-supported agriculture, local food systems, and PGS.
CoopCycle, the French delivery cooperative federation, comprises 67 bicycle delivery cooperatives. Riders are paid hourly, can refuse assignments and are not surveilled by algorithms; major decisions are voted on by all cooperatives on a “one person, one vote” basis.
Since farming in Virginia in the 1970s, Salatin has consistently pointed out that in the United States, slaughtering one’s own livestock on-site, selling the meat to neighbours, and even opening a farm to visitors are all illegal.
Cracked fingertips, farmhands in their seventies doing all the planting across 20 mu, members unwilling to share a thin harvest – at a community-supported farm in Fengxian, Shanghai, three months of labour brought the organic ideal up against the concrete realities of manpower, seasons, and funding.
From their own vegetable plots in Qujing to a table on a steep Kunming slope, Tusheng Shiguan is fourteen years in; footfall has dropped from a full mezzanine to three staff, but its Slow Food way — no pesticides, no MSG — has not changed.
Starting an organic sourdough bakery was not a whim. In order to provide my family with quality carbs, I spent several years learning how to make sourdough using a natural wild yeast starter. Over those years, I often gave loaves to friends or brought them along to potluck dinners, where…
Foodthink’s Perspective Since the 1950s, a “Fair Trade” movement has emerged globally. Cheap agricultural products from developing countries are constantly imported into developed nations, yet the vast majority of profits from commodity prices are seized by large capital interests within the trade chain, leaving farmers and labourers with only a…
Foodthink Says As autumn arrives, The Little Dining Table in Yulin, Chengdu has been running for half a year. These six months of practice have fostered a growing sense of harmony between the cook, the dining companions, the farmers, and the food itself. For everyone involved, beyond the planned changes,…
Several Chinese scholars and practitioners discuss the newly published history of Monsanto, Seed Empire, moving from GM seeds’ actual performance to farmers’ seed saving and public plant breeding, asking whether ordinary people and smallholders can reclaim the right to choose food and seeds.
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.
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…
