China is currently the world's largest importer of agricultural products, buying 60% of globally traded soy. But a 2026 consultation paper by SystemIQ argues China may be approaching a turning point. In the coming decades, China could shift from being a net food importer to net food exporter of animal proteins. We dive into the analysis with the paper's authors to see how plausible that scenario might be, what it would take to get there including the role of alternative proteins in that future, and what might be the implications for global food systems.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode103

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Read the consultation paper: China's Food Future (SystemIQ, 2026)

Guests

• Anna Morser, Director at SystemIQ
• Alex Andreoli, Manager at SystemIQ
• Fengwei Ina Liu, Director of FOLU China

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping's government decided not to regulate its fishing sector. What grew out of that space was extraordinary. Today China produces 76 million tonnes of seafood a year, and a mounting environmental cost. This episode follows the small farms and the global infrastructure that connects them, and asks what happens when a government tries to course correct a system it deliberately set loose.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode102

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Guests

• Han Han, Founder and director of NGO China Blue Sustainability Institute
• Xuefei Shi, Researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway
• James Keeley, Food and agricultural development consultant and China specialist

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

One-third of the world's rice is grown in China, on less than a fifth of the world's rice-growing area, by farmers whose average age is over 55, in a countryside that is slowly emptying. This episode asks how that's possible, and how much longer it can last.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode101

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Guests

• Lena Kaufmann, Social Anthropologist at Université de Fribourg
• Li Zhang, Prof in Sociology and Environmental Studies at Amherst Colleage

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Today China produces roughly half the world's pork. Getting there required swine genetics from multiple continents, feed from Brazil, and a disease outbreak that wiped out hundreds of millions of animals. This episode asks how they did it, and what that cost - to the household pig, to the smallholder farmer, and to ecosystems thousands of kilometers away.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode100

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Guests

• Ron Lane, Agricultural consultant in Beijing
• Li Zhang, Prof in Sociology and Environmental Studies at Amherst College
• Gustavo Oliveira, Prof in Geography at Clark University

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In sixty years China moved from catastrophic famine to feeding 1.4 billion people. This episode asks how that transformation happened - and what it set in motion.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode99

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Guests

• Michelle King, Prof in Chinese History at UNC
• Zhang Hongzhou, Prof in International Political Economy at RSIS
• Fengwei Ina Liu, Director of FOLU China

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In sixty years, China has moved from catastrophic famine to now feeding one in six people on the planet. Following three foods - pork, rice, and fish - this series traces a transformation that has emptied the Chinese countryside, reshaped ecosystems from Brazil to the South China Sea, and produced the high-rise hog farm model that is being exported across the world. We examine the competing priorities driving this transformation, the distributed costs and benefits, and what it means for the rest of the world.

"Feeding 1 in 6: China and the future of food" arrives in this feed on 21 May 2026.

More info here

Soy looks different depending on where you sit. For Ryan Britt, who's farming soy, corn, wheat and cattle on over 2,000 hectares in North Central Missouri, it's the crop that reliably pays the bills. In 2025, Ryan found himself squarely in the middle of a global trade story he had very little control over. We talk about what he can control on the farm — cover cropping, no-till, rotations — and why he still advocates for farmers even when he'd rather be on a tractor.

Register for the Bolivia soy webinar here

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode97

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

After several hype years, plant-based and cultivated meat have faced growing skepticism. Lately, the media has written obituaries. And the market value is declining. Bruce Friedrich, founder and president of the Good Food Institute, offers a different view: the long view.

Friedrich joined clean energy reporter David Roberts on the Volts podcast to discuss his new book, Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food—and Our Future. It’s an honest conversation about a difficult topic, that's well worth listening to. Shared here on Feed with permission.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode96

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Subscribe to the Volts podcast

Read Bruce Friedrich's new book: Meat

Why can reasonable people look at the same evidence on meat—and still eat very differently? Matthew Kessler shares a personal essay reflecting on his time working on livestock farms, conversations with experts across all sides of the issue, and on his own on-and-off relationship with eating animals.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode95

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Tangle Essay: What we disagree about when we talk about meat

TABLE Podcast: Meat: the four futures 

TABLE Report: Meat, Metrics and Mindsets 

What does “sustainable agriculture” actually mean, and why do scientists disagree about it? This episode explores how two influential scientific discourses - Agroecology and Sustainable Intensification - start from different values, ask different questions, and often talk past each other. Drawing on an interdisciplinary study at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, ecologist Riccardo Bommarco and ethicist Helena Rocklinsberg examine how those different approaches shape research, priorities, and solutions. The conversation turns to what might change when scientists begin to listen to each other across divides.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode94

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Most industries have a clear roadmap for transformation. The power sector goes renewable. Cars go electric. But food and agriculture? The world’s most impactful—and most damaging—industry still has no shared path to transformation. Food sustainability consultant and retail expert Mike Barry argues that the future of food hinges on one counterintuitive idea: simplification. And he explains how AI, smarter data, and design can potentially speed up change.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode93

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to [email protected]

Episode edited and hosted by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.