A Middle Way? Probing Sufficiency through Meat and Milk in China (MidWay)

The primary objective of the MidWay-project is to probe the concept of sufficiency as a useful organising principle to achieve reduced consumption based on the empirical inputs from meat and milk practices in China.

About

The fundamental challenge addressed in MidWay is to probe a position wherein consumption is decreased, but overall welfare is ensured.

In order to get at this challenge, the project sets out to better understand the ways in which supply and demand of both meat and cow’s milk have become co-constituted with and embedded in Chinese food practices.

Research questions

RQ1

How have meat and milk become constructed as essential foods in China?

RQ2

What places do meat and milk have in contemporary urban food-practices? How and why has this changed along with changes in materials, meanings and competences?

RQ3

To what extent and how have changes in systems of provision affected the consumption of meat and milk?

RQ4

What are viable avenues to promote sufficiency in current Chinese food practices, as seen through the examples of meat and milk? How can sufficiency be conceptualised, more generally?

Blog

  • The baseless fear of wicked problems: The story of the man from Qi
    By Tarjei Brekke, PhD student ERC-MidWay Exploring the concept of sufficiency in China forces one’s feet to balance atop a crooked, rickety fence. On the one side, asking the everyperson on the street and in the teahouses about sustainability incites hour-long, sometimes heated, discussions about how the West and in particular the US only just… Read more »
  • 中道项目中国研讨会小组工作和行动要点
    在2023年8月举行的“中国城市粮食、自给自足和可持续农业”多方利益相关者研讨会系列更新的最后一篇文章中,我们将总结研讨会最后小组工作的一些要点。 内容丰富且引人入胜的研讨会演讲为随后的讨论奠定了基础。参与者被分为五个混合小组,所有小组都讨论了深刻而重要的话题,这些话题将纳入中道项目未来工作的研究设计。 这些小组强调,一个重大挑战是平衡资源限制、粮食安全、环境可持续性和社会福利之间的权衡。 由于中国拥有世界近五分之一的人口,但耕地面积只有9%,水资源只有5%,这一点尤为紧迫。同时,必须优先考虑健康和营养食品,其中健康与理想的消费水平/形式有关。营养和可持续性问题应该放在一起看待,政府的建议可以包括地球和人类健康在食品建议中。 自给自足的话题也得到了广泛讨论。特别是,各小组讨论了衡量和实现粮食生产和消费的充足性,同时考虑了未来的供需情景、有限的资源以及以动物为基础的农业对环境的影响。这种讨论包括过度消费和食物浪费,这在中国是日益严重的问题。动物性食品的理想消费水平可以定义为“足够”和“足够好”,这意味着充足、高质量和可持续。 另一个中心议题涉及畜牧业的不同规模和结构。这些小组强调了从其他国家工业化的经验和错误中吸取教训的重要性,并探索和系统化有助于改善中国粮食系统的现有做法和举措。小规模农业、替代食品网络、绿色发展和减少食物浪费就是其中的一些举措。这些小组还讨论了如何评估相对较少的大型公司、施肥的闭环系统、农场和合作社的中小型水平以及不同的动物及其需求的问题。没有一个放之四海而皆准的解决方案,但需要平衡和多样性。生产规模涉及大规模和小规模农业之间的权衡,这对粮食安全、环境保护、农村发展、健康和福祉具有不同的影响。 这些小组还讨论了消费者与提供系统。这包括围绕避免食物浪费的必要性、个人健康以及对动物产品质量和安全的要求进行讨论。谁负责做出有关健康、营养或可持续性的决策,以及如何改变食品实践以变得更加可持续?这些都是可以跟随中道项目一路走来的相关问题。 最后,小组还讨论了政府在中国的作用。作为大多数决策的关键参与者,为了促进适当的解决方案,必须牢记国家控制与私有化、自上而下与自下而上的解决方案以及与政府的一般沟通之间的平衡。 基于这些思考,我们可以提炼出五个问题,我们将继续保留这些问题作为中道项目的背景: “中道”项目旨在为中国可持续农业粮食体系的考察提供严谨的科学依据,包括概念性讨论、反思和定性研究的经验教训。该项目的目的不一定是提供建议,而是从我们的研究中提供见解,这些见解可能有助于识别和解决可持续农业粮食体系的障碍和机遇。尽管欧洲和中国的学者被认为是我们的主要目标受众,但我们也致力于思考如何让广泛的利益相关者与我们的工作相关联,包括超越学术界。 我们期待接下来的四年继续研究这个非常激动人心的课题!

Scientific Advisory Board

ZHAO Yandong

Department of Sociology
Renmin University of China

Elizabeth Shove

Department of Sociology
Lancaster University

HONG Wei

Center of Science
Technology and Society
Tsinghua University

Mindi Schneider

Institute at Brown for Environment and Society
Brown University

LIU Chen

School of Geography and Planning
Sun Yat-sen University

Thomas David DuBois

Beijing Normal University

Adrian Ely

SPRU – Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex

Arve Hansen

Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo

Contact

    Funded by the European Union (ERC, MidWay, project 101041995). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.