Country Fair organizers Emi Uemura and Caroline Merrifield tell us how we can get acquainted with our local organic farmers.

How does Country Fair work?
Country Fair developed out of a need to connect Beijing’s organic farmers with the city’s consumers. The event – modeled after farmers’ markets like those in Canada or the US – works as a platform for consumers to engage directly with the people who feed them, and for farmers to practice direct marketing. Our hope has been that the Country Fair events will increase consumers’ understanding of our urban food system, supporting the efforts of Beijing’s small-scale organic producers. 

During our visit to Liuminying Ecological Farm (留民营生态农庄), the most memorable scenes were rows of opaque greenhouses, dozens of Lego-like operating rooms with cheerful red roofs and yellow walls, blue skies and bright sunshine. Located in Daxing District, it is the first village applying ecology agriculture in China.

Another day, another report on questionable additives in Chinese food. According to a CNN report, McDonald’s China processes chicken nuggets with two chemicals that are more commonly found in Silly Putty.

Time for today's depressing food safety story. According to a report in the Global Times this morning, “About 80 percent of the paper napkins used in Beijing restaurants have been tainted with poisoned chemicals and are unsafe.”

Starting from today you’ll be able to buy a nice crispy youtiao at KFCs throughout Beijing and around the country as the fast food giant has decided to add the traditional Chinese morning snack to their breakfast menu. The colonel is making a big deal of the fact that his KFC youtiao are safe, clean and free of the 明矾 (ming fan) or alum that a lot of the street vendors add to give their deep fried dough sticks that extra bit of puff.