In 2021, after a ten-year stint in Beijing which I ended for physical and mental health reasons, I returned to my hometown of Xin County in Shandong and stayed for nearly a year. Xin County is known as ‘China’s premier vegetable county’, with fruit and vegetable cultivation covering over a…

Recently, reports of the “field-rotting rains” in Henan and the rush to harvest wheat have spread across social media, causing anxiety for everyone concerned with agriculture. The Guanzhong region of Shaanxi, also a major wheat-producing area, experienced these “field-rotting rains” almost simultaneously with Henan, and the damage to the crops…

I am Xiaomi. In December 2021, at the age of 26, I resigned from a civil service training company. Without a clear idea of what job to look for, I headed home to prepare for the Lunar New Year. During the holiday, I began to think about my future; I…

At the beginning of 2023, Foodthink opened applications for the second cohort of its “Agroecology Internship Programme”. Our aim was to bridge the gap between young people aspiring to work in agroecology and established ecological farms. This allows participants to acquire essential farming knowledge and skills, ensures that the wisdom…

Foodthink says Last Monday, we shared the reasons why more than ten young people decided to press the pause button on their city lives. Why, then, did they not choose to simply ‘lie flat’, but instead head to the countryside to learn how to farm and embrace a more laborious…

Foodthink’s Agroecology Internship Programme was originally conceived to connect young people aspiring to return to their roots in agroecology with seasoned mentors who possess a wealth of practical experience. The aim was to foster a relationship of mutual learning and collaboration, helping a new generation of farmers minimise the cost…

A Note from Foodthink Since the launch of the recruitment for the second intake of Foodthink’s Ecological Farming Internship Programme, we have received many applications. Thank you all for your interest! We have been getting in touch with suitable candidates and conducting detailed interviews. By the end of this month,…

This episode was recorded in the Alxa desert of Inner Mongolia by Qihua, Foodthink’s lead on climate change and ecological smallholder research, along with two guests. In late August 2022, the three of them sat under a large tree in an oasis within the Tengger Desert; you may hear the…

At the end of 2021, I left Shanghai and the new media industry, where I had lived and worked for eight years, to embark on a gap year, feeling a more liberating force calling to me from deep within. I believe the seed for this was planted when I read…

I. I. Mother’s Hearth Leaving Lijiang Ancient City to the northwest and passing Lashi Lake, we could see the silver-white peaks of the Jade Dragon and Haba snow mountains in the distance as we travelled through the high mountain valleys along the banks of the Jinsha River. Mid-October marks the…