I wonder if many people are like me; when aimlessly picking up a corn cob, a bag of rice, or a lychee from the air-conditioned aisles of a supermarket, they almost never consider their source—the look of the land. It is as if food simply appears on the supermarket shelves,…

At first light, Yang Ge’s drone had already been working in the rice fields for some time. As a drone pilot, he holds the “life-and-death power” over some 2,000 mu of crops. Wearing a wide-brimmed hat that leaves only his eyes visible, he operates a remote control that records flight…

Foodthink’s Perspective From rice wine and fermented black beans to pickles and soy sauce, we have long been accustomed to seeking the warmth of home and the vitality of life within the sour, fragrant, and mellow notes of fermentation. In the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, fermentation is even more intimately woven into…

I. More Than Just an Observer July in Beijing is the height of summer. On this land I am soon to leave, the seeds sown in spring are now bearing plump fruit. Immersed in the joy of the harvest, I have come to realise how precious the past three months…

I.Leaving it all behind for the farm On an ordinary morning, walking into the passion fruit field, I saw golden fruit hanging heavy from the branches. The trees planted in late March had brought forth a second bloom, and the bees, busy pollinating, buzzed in my ears. The scene before…

This March, driven by uncertainty about my future career path and an eagerness for new experiences, I joined the “Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme” hosted by Foodthink and arrived at the Lexiangu Community Farm in the Fengxian District of Shanghai. Before this, my image of a farm had been shaped by…

Editor’s Note Few dietary cultures are as deeply defined by religion and embedded in ethnic life as “Halal”. After connecting with Muslim friends from the Northwest, I realised that once they leave their predominantly Muslim communities to work in the South, they have very few affordable Halal dining options beyond…

Every garden possesses its own theory of beauty and its own moral conception of happiness. —— Santiago Berrueyet, *Philosophy in the Garden* Strangely enough, it was “weeds” that first drew me to ecological farming. Firstly, weeds as a problem. As a student of sociology and anthropology, I spent nearly a…

Foodthink’s Perspective Termite mushrooms, known locally in Shaoguan, Guangdong as “Summer Solstice mushrooms”, have become a culinary trend in recent years, sparking a picking frenzy across Northern Guangdong. CaiCai and Dayan from the “Springflut” studio ventured into the Yao community and inadvertently found themselves amidst a vast army of mushroom…

Foodthink Says What happens when young people, reluctant to follow the mainstream path of life, come to intern at an agroecological farm? What do they gain? This article shares the reflections of Ze Jun, an intern in Foodthink’s third “Agroecology Internship Programme”, compiled from her talk at last year’s sharing…