Smallholder farms contribute one third<\/u><\/a> of all the food consumed in high-income countries like the U.S., but smallholder farmers around the world often struggle to navigate a food system that is controlled by just a handful of large companies. Climate change, lack of access to land, and lack of sufficient policy support make the farmer\u2019s job even harder. Earlier this month in Beijing, I had the opportunity to meet a smallholder farmer named Konkongu (\u7a7a\u7a7a\u8c37), based in Beijing\u2019s Pinggu District. He said that, despite the difficulties facing farmers in China, \u201cI just want to plant some really healthy food.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n Before Konkongu became a farmer, he was a medical worker. At the age of 29, Konkongu decided to return to his family\u2019s rented land to practice natural farming. Natural farming incorporates principles from organic farming but also has a distinct goal of \u201chealth\u201d \u2014 healthy food grown with a healthy mindset, meant to build healthy communities. To Konkongu, natural farming is an Eastern practice and lifestyle as opposed to the Western construct of \u201corganic certification.\u201d But his vegetables are still certified organic and sold at the Beijing Farmer\u2019s Market every Saturday and Sunday during the summer and fall months. That\u2019s where I met Konkongu during my trip to Beijing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n My primary purpose in Beijing was to attend a workshop hosted by the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre<\/u><\/a> and the Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance<\/u><\/a> (CIDEG) at Tsinghua University on competition in the global grain trade. At the workshop, speakers reflected on how developing countries could address the lack of competition in the grain market with a focus on BRICS<\/u><\/a> members, an international group of 11 emerging economies. Some of the key ideas discussed were increasing transparency of trade data, limiting \u201cfinancial embeddedness<\/u><\/a>,\u201d and coordinating competition law enforcement across BRICS countries. \u00a0<\/p>\n Grain is one of the most traded goods in the world and an essential node in global food value chains. However, the growing economic power of major commodity traders makes fair and sustainable grain trade impossible. The ABCD group \u2014 ADM, Bungee, Cargill, and LDC \u2014 together control between 70-90%<\/u><\/a> of the global grain trade. Through aggressive vertical integration, they also control the inputs, logistics, financing, and processing of grain. This concentration of power has often made it hard for farmers and farm workers to make a fair living, and for countries to meet sustainability goals. It also threatens food security around the world at a time when climate change and geopolitics already pose challenges to food production and distribution. Moreover, major commodity traders actually profit from market instability, between government support and derivative-based income<\/u><\/a> that increases during periods of crisis.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Competition issues plague the rest of the food system, too. Just a handful of powerful companies control the markets<\/u><\/a> for agricultural inputs (fertilizers and seeds), farm machinery, meat packing, food and beverage processing, and grocery retail. These companies are then able to use their economic dominance to exercise political power, shape scientific research, and influence the policies and systems that regulate them. Governments around the world are grappling with the common challenge of how to reign in powerful global agribusiness firms and restore fair competition to their markets. The BRICS Centre will continue to host workshops that highlight potential remedies for this issue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Food system advocates and policymakers have called for more localized and democratic food system governance as a way to curb corporate control over food systems. During my time in Beijing, I met with an organization that is working toward that goal in China.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n FoodThink<\/u><\/a> (\u98df\u901a\u793e) is a Beijing-based nonprofit dedicated to environmental sustainability and social justice in the agri-food system. Along with their core program team, FoodThink works with a network of farmers, academics, and journalists to create articles, podcasts, and multimedia content on food policy, agroecology, climate impacts, and other topics. The organization is led by Chang Tianle (\u5e38\u5929\u4e50), who also runs the Beijing Farmers Market. On non-market days, farmer\u2019s products are sold at the Community Market storefront, also led by Tianle. While I was in Beijing, Tianle invited me to eat and convene with the FoodThink crew many times. She also organized a public presentation where I talked about corporate power and climate reporting in the global meat and dairy sector<\/u><\/a>. On Sunday, the day before I would return home, she invited me to visit the Beijing Farmer\u2019s Market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When I arrived at the farmers\u2019 market on Sunday, I saw many of the same products from the Community Market, where I gave my presentation the day before \u2014 local produce, packaged goods, soaps, hand-carved wood, cotton goods. Some vendors sold hot meat pies and flatbreads as well. Everything sold at the farmer\u2019s market is certified organic, and most of it is local to Beijing and the surrounding areas.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n I spoke with the cotton goods vendor about his business and the organic market in Beijing. His Chinese name is \uf9c7\u9038<\/span>, and he doesn\u2019t have an official English name, but he told me I could call him Bell.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n Bell comes to the market every week, and he makes around $800 on a good day. Making and selling cotton goods is his side hustle \u2014 during the week, he teaches at a secondary school. Bell mentioned his interest in political economy and investment, so I asked him what he thought about China\u2013U.S. trade relations. \u201cI think the whole world is changing really fast,\u201d he said. \u201cIt may not be what the U.S. wants, but I think it is time for the U.S. and China to decouple.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n On the other side of the farmer\u2019s market, Konkongu sells his vegetables. Toward the end of the market, Tianle helped me negotiate a farm visit with him. He agrees to drive me to his farm as long as I can find my own way back to Beijing and use my phone to translate. I said yes, and within the hour Konkongu and I left the city in his van with the unsold produce in the trunk. We also shuttled a tea farmer back to his home, which was on the way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n On the one-and-a-half-hour drive, Konkongu and I talked via my phone translator. Konkongu told me that he has not planted vegetables properly in the summer for several years due to intense rain. Instead of changing what he plants, Konkongu prefers to adjust the planting season. But that has consequences: \u201cwhen you wait for the climate to get better and then plant, the planting time will be a little later,\u201d he told me. \u201cThe yield will decrease a lot.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n To sell his vegetables, Konkongu only has the Beijing Farmer\u2019s Market and express delivery orders, which are similar to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) but much less organized and inconsistent. When I asked Konkongu how he heard about the Beijing Farmer\u2019s Market, he said, \u201cthe organic market is very small, everyone knows.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n When we arrived at Konkongu\u2019s farm in the Pinggu District, his dog Cucumber greeted us. I offered to help unload the trunk, but Konkongu insisted that I look around instead. I wandered around the farm while Cucumber yapped and growled at my heels. Konkongu\u2019s father came out from the \u201coffice\u201d area, surprised to see me. I tried to explain who I am using my phone translator, but he found that odd and cumbersome. He walked away \u2014 lots of work to do. It was almost 5 o\u2019clock.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n When Konkongu was done unloading, he gave me a farm tour. In the southeast quadrant, he has planted coriander, onion, and spinach, among other crops. He proudly showed me a pond that he built about 100 feet away to attract frogs \u2014 \u201cwater is the source of all biodiversity,\u201d he said. In the southwest quadrant, Konkongu grows cucumbers, more spinach, and carrots. A few varieties of nuts grow on the trees, and we snacked on them as we walked around. Konkongu told me that his sunflowers and radishes failed this year from too much rain.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n After the farm tour, we sat in the office to seek refuge from the sun and bugs. We had about 30 minutes before he needed to drive me to town to catch the last bus to Beijing. We used those last minutes to talk about everything other than farming \u2014 tea, hobbies, what he likes to do in the off-season. It turns out that Kongkongu practices kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with paint or gold to make it more valuable and beautiful. He showed me his personal kintsugi projects, and then he opened a chest full of his friends\u2019 broken pottery which they\u2019ve asked him to fix. I remarked at how long it must take him to get through all those projects. He just nodded and smiled.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At the most basic level, food systems are built from the relationship between people and land. As I rode the bus back to the city, I reflected on Kongkongu\u2019s story and how it fits into the narratives about farming and agriculture I heard during my time in Beijing. The work being done by FoodThink, the Beijing Farmer\u2019s Market, and farmers like Kongkongu offer an example of the antidote to runaway corporate power in the global food system. It also serves as a reminder that creating an alternative food system starts, in part, with people willing to do things differently. Just like Kongkongu\u2019s chest full of broken pottery, we need to put our food system back together. Perhaps we can make it more beautiful in the process.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Smallholder farms contribute one third of all the food consumed in high-income countries like the U.S., but smallholder farmers around the world often struggle to navigate a food system that is controlled by just a handful of large companies. Climate change, lack of access to land, and lack of sufficient policy support make the farmer\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7070015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12026],"tags":[25543,2074,1783,19272,8087],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7070014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-beijing","tag-food","tag-power","tag-taught","tag-trip"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Konkongu](\"https:\/\/www.iatp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/3941718381644403362.JPG\")
<\/p>\nKonkongu with his crops<\/h5>\n
Corporate power in the global grain trade\u00a0<\/h3>\n
![\"Leila's](\"https:\/\/www.iatp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/20260910_155913.JPG\")
<\/p>\nThe local food system in Beijing\u00a0<\/h3>\n
![\"Leila](\"https:\/\/www.iatp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/Image%20%289%29.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLeila presenting at FoodThink<\/h5>\n
![\"Bell](\"https:\/\/www.iatp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/358212253048160335.JPG\")
<\/p>\nBell with his cotton goods at the market<\/h5>\n
Kongkongu\u2019s story\u00a0<\/h3>\n
![\"Cucumber](\"https:\/\/www.iatp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/Image%20%288%29.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCucumber<\/h5>\n
![\"Konkongu](\"https:\/\/www.iatp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/2921575599744672126.JPG\")
<\/p>\nKonkongu with a disappointing radish crop<\/h5>\n
Repairing a broken food system: lessons from kintsugi\u00a0\u00a0<\/h3>\n
![\"Konkongu's](\"https:\/\/www.iatp.org\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/2818066107278163610.JPG\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"