This Saturday: Come to Ürümqi and Watch a Film Together | Screening Event

This year, designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, to help more people learn about pastoral areas and herders, the field-research documentary “Whose Table, Whose Pasture”, supported by Foodthink Lianhe Creation Programme, will be screened in Ürümqi on the afternoon of 23 May, with local Xinjiang-based organisations, institutions and guest speakers invited to share their perspectives and engage with the audience.

Whose Table, Whose Pasture is based on field research in the pastoral areas around Qinghai Lake. It documents the impact on herders’ livelihoods and way of life as livestock prices continue to fall and large volumes of imported frozen meat flood the market. Are similar changes also taking place in the pastoral areas of Xinjiang? As the second largest grazing region in China, Xinjiang’s pastoral areas have long faced ecological and developmental challenges such as grassland degradation and industrial transformation. As fellow pastoral regions and fellow herders, what changes and challenges does each face?

Pastoral areas are more than just grazing land — they are intertwined with grassland ecology, the local economy and the daily lives of herders. When we speak of pastoral areas and herders, the challenges faced by different regions may not be identical, but they all deserve to be seen and discussed. Foodthink hopes to use this opportunity to draw our collective attention to our pastoral areas and herders.

◉ The flock of Niangejia, one of the subjects of Whose Table, Whose Pasture. Photo: Jiao Xiaofang

◉ Revisiting is an important part of community video practice. In 2025, Jiao Xiaofang returned to the filming locations to screen Whose Table, Whose Pasture for the herders. Photo: Jiao Xiaofang

Whose Table, Whose Pasture goes beyond asking “Where does meat come from?” or “Where is the meat on your plate from?” It probes a harder question: when imported meat floods the market, who is truly bearing the pressure? Who is paying the price for this table?

This Saturday at 16:00 (23 May), Foodthink will bring the documentary “Whose Table, Whose Pasture“ to a screening event at Yonghe Lane Community, Jiefang South Road Sub-district, Tianshan District, Ürümqi, and invite local friends to join us in watching the film.

After the screening, local organisations and institutions, along with guest speakers and academics familiar with pastoral and herder issues, will join for sharing and discussion.

 – Film Synopsis – 

Whose Table, Whose Pasture is a field-research documentary. Supported by Foodthink’s Lianhe Creation Programme, the director immersed themselves in the pastoral areas around Qinghai Lake, documenting the impact of large volumes of imported frozen beef and mutton entering local markets.

Through visits to frozen-food wholesale markets and cold-chain warehouses in Xining, and by filming local herder families, butcher shops and feedlots, the film provides a candid portrayal of how imported meat, buoyed by its low-price advantage, is disrupting the local beef and mutton trade. This has directly led to a sharp drop in livestock purchase prices for herders, shrinking incomes, mounting difficulty in repaying loans, and razor-thin profit margins that make business almost impossible for local meat sellers.

The camera follows deep into Qinghai Lake’s imported beef and mutton market, probing a brutal reality: within the globalised meat chain, who enjoys the low prices, and who bears the cost?

Jiao Xiaofang | Documentary director and visual anthropology researcher with a long-standing interest in local knowledge, ecological ethics and women’s experience in western China and Southeast Asian coastal regions. Her work combines ethnographic observation with poetic expression, focusing on the relationship between people and nature and the emotional landscapes of everyday life. Her documentary Whose Table, Whose Pasture (2025) was shortlisted for the 5th World Nomad Film Festival and the 6th China Ethnographic Documentary Film Festival.

Qiongwu Danzeng | Tibetan documentary maker and community activist, long committed to ecological conservation and visual education across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. He previously served as coordinator of the “Xiangcun Zhi Yan” Tibetan-area project in Yunnan and as regional representative of the Alashan SEE Three-River Source Project Centre, and is currently the lead of the Human–Bear Conflict Programme at the Qinghai Xuejing Ecology Education and Research Centre. Over the past decade, he has promoted herder video training and community ecological projects in Yushu, Aba and other areas, supporting herders in documenting their own environment and culture through film. His work spans visual storytelling, ecology and public education, dedicated to building understanding and coexistence between people and nature.

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