Every Sunday, more than 200 farmers and local producers sell their own produce directly at nearly 20 London markets, with a set proportion of ingredients from within 100 miles. For many Londoners, these are among the few open spaces to get outside and talk face to face with producers during the pandemic.
Foodthink records the pandemic-era routine of shared purchasing with the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, recounts farm visits across several provinces in the second half of the year, and shares four winter recipes from Xiao Liushu Farm.
Starting with the small grocery shop opened by 28 textile workers in Rochdale in 1844, this piece traces how the seven co-operative principles took shape in the workers’ daily operations, and why the co-operative economy has regained attention after the financial crisis.
At a farmers’ market in a small American Midwest town, a pig and cattle farmer running eight hundred mu of land single-handedly still sells meat, fixes machines and climbs trees on a still-healing hip – because farm income cannot keep a family afloat.
In Beijing, Professor Steffanie Scott of the University of Waterloo and CSA farmer Theresa Schumilas introduced Canada’s organisational network, from national farming associations to community supported agriculture, and discussed its implications for smallholder and consumer alliances in China.
Vertical farm lighting accounts for 70 per cent of operating costs, and lab-grown meat is still backed by big capital — Bill Gates, Cargill and others. Changing the food system takes more than technology: it needs collective action in farmers’ markets, CSA and urban community gardens.
Sun Shan, now based in Ottawa, expands the concept into six rules for grocery shopping—choose simple fresh foods, reduce packaging, buy in bulk, prioritise fresh plant foods, and shop at farmers’ markets more often—adding that the same principles apply just as well in China’s large chain supermarkets.
At the Fifth National Farmers’ Seed Network Annual Conference, smallholders from Yunnan, Guangxi, Hebei, Jiangsu and beyond exchanged on seed selection and cross-breeding, linked Community Seed Banks to farmers’ markets, and wove old varieties, ethnic food, and festival rites back into the fields.
Fifty mu in Liqiao, Shunyi, Beijing, split into 30 plots and growing 20 to 30 vegetable varieties each season. Fallen leaf compost and lactic acid bacteria fermentation solution replace chemical inputs—four years of consistent quality, never a loss.