Eighty years ago, Albert Howard warned that chemical fertilisers would sever the mycorrhizal network sustaining the soil; Swiss research later confirmed no mycorrhizal keystone species could be found on conventionally managed farmland. Under chemical fertilisers and pesticides, can ancient underground symbiotic relationships open another path for agriculture?
This year, whether in the city or the countryside, the rising cost of vegetables is on everyone’s lips. Yet, while we complain about inflation, the farmers in the fields are facing unprecedented challenges. Few stop to ask: why are prices rising like this, and are the farmers actually making…
Beijing University of Agriculture graduate Wu Longlong, back in Gansu’s Ning County since 2015, free-ranges black pigs beside Ziwuling Reserve at half a jin maize each daily. This spring, the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market headed up to see mountain-roaming pigs sharing a ridge with the North China leopard.
In the desert fields beneath the Helan Mountains, one rainstorm cracks the honeydew melons, and a dozen or so shared meals and quarters test an introvert’s endurance. Yet the silver glow of Russian olive trees and the Milky Way overhead give a reason to stay and farm.
From the short crop at Hu Xuemei’s farm on Chengdu’s outskirts to radish greens at the Longquan Green Vegetable Shop, Chengdu freelancer Xia Lili’s ecological Little Dining Table and the community vegetable shop show how everyday vegetable shopping becomes a healing space for residents.
Recently, “Food Talk” was delighted to receive the Annual Podcast Award in the Public Welfare and Environmental Protection category at the 3rd CPA Chinese Podcast Culture Festival. This award also sparked a chance encounter. On 23 November, “Food Talk” host Xiaojing met an old friend at the awards ceremony—Yu Jiangang,…
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.
Liu Juan, associate professor at China Agricultural University, uses fieldwork in Chongqing, Hebei and elsewhere to show how droughts, windstorms and other shocks hit smallholder farmers facing labour outflow and low grain returns — arguing that climate adaptation must first address these fundamental questions in the agrarian transition.
Rooted in Guangxi rural reconstruction for nearly 20 years, Lao Liu (Huang Guoliang) draws on years beside fellow ecological farmers to discuss bridging two knowledge systems, whether new-generation farmers have returned in heart as well as body, and how training can go beyond imitation to observing and thinking.
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.
