It’s not “you” vs. “me” or “us” vs. “them”. It’s "us" vs. the system. This week's Thin Ink is about two very different kinds of food systems insiders, from Kenyan farmers to UK food executives, who are saying surprisingly similar things. news.thin-ink.net/p/us-vs-the-...

Us vs. the System

What farmers and food executives are both trying to tell us

news.thin-ink.net

Our investigation, Big Food vs. The People, revealed how food and beverage companies sue governments to stop public health policies. Now, two responsible investment organisations coordinating large coalitions of investors are calling the corporations to stop. www.iccr.org/investor-gro...

I'd planned to write this week about Terra Madre, food, people, & hope. Instead, 2 FAO videos landed on my lap & my Lighthouse colleagues published investigation into Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank. news.thin-ink.net/p/choke-points

Choke Points

How physical and digital surveillance & silencing dissent strangle our humanity

news.thin-ink.net

I understand this speech was delivered during last week's conference on One Health, on Monday evening (Sep 21), and that this video is genuine. Benjamin has spoken & written publicly about the dire levels of hunger in Gaza & the blockade of humanitarian aid. I've asked the FAO for comment.

Vijay Prashad@vijayprashad.bsky.social · 3w ago

This is Benjamin Davis, the @fao.org Director of the Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division. He has been asked to retire because he protested the starvation policy of Apartheid Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

This post is coming a little late because I was moderating a plenary session at Slow Food Terra Madre 2026 when this went out yesterday. Did you know that… - 100 world’s largest companies by global food & agri revenue had $4.5 trillion in revenue in 2022? news.thin-ink.net/p/the-opacit...

“The Opacity Is The Point”

Agribusiness Financial Complex and other food notes from NY Climate Week

news.thin-ink.net

New research: a bigger shock ≠ worse hunger. What matters is government effectiveness, food supply diversity & social capital. Study 2 explains why "government effectiveness" critical: dominant traders enjoying 40-80% margins on maize & soybeans in E. & S. Africa. news.thin-ink.net/p/the-shock-...

The Shock Is Only Half The Story

Two new studies on resilience, market power, and government effectiveness

news.thin-ink.net

Myanmar's opposition span every walk of life. Here is a story of a young Chin man who became a policeman due to a lack of job opportunities at home, and ended up joining the resistance and becoming a journalist. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar kite-tales.org/en/article/p...

From a Policeman to Pen-Wielding Journalist

kite-tales.org

For this week's Thin Ink, we’re still in Brazil, speaking to Ed Wanderley, Brasília-based editor for @apublica.org Agência Pública, whose story starts at a concert, ends up in an ICU stay, and turned into an investigation of the food and pharmaceutical industries. news.thin-ink.net/p/how-paul-m...

How Paul McCartney Almost Killed Me

Ed Wanderley built a career writing about human rights, science, and health. Then his own heart attack made him the story.

news.thin-ink.net

"The night was a long & restless one: for the prison staff, for (those) in the dormitories, and certainly for me too. I distinctly remember a quiet, dark, & heavy atmosphere." A former political prisoner recalls the day the junta executed Ko Jimmy & Phyo Zeya Thaw. kite-tales.org/en/article/d...

A Dark Day

kite-tales.org

Last week, I wrote about how political shifts can threaten public health policies. This week's guest post, by Thalita Pires, editor of @ojoioeotrigo.bsky.social, vividly illustrates how Brazil’s elections next month could affect both hunger & nutritional outcomes. news.thin-ink.net/p/brazil-is-...

Brazil Is Off the Hunger Map. Food Is Still on the Ballot.

What’s at stake in the upcoming elections

news.thin-ink.net

For my first issue after summer, I'm focusing on what I learnt from working on Big Food vs. The People investigation, after months and months of tracking down legal documents, reading up on public health policy & speaking to folks around the world. news.thin-ink.net/p/what-18-mo...

What 18 Months Of Chasing Big Food Lawsuits Taught Me

Including why getting a law passed is just the beginning and the fight over NOVA is a red herring

news.thin-ink.net

Jason Arday has been found dead. The obsessive media focus on this one man - as if it was one of the biggest scandals in history - was disproportionate beyond belief. Push notifications, top headlines, constant investigations. And now he is dead.

A diary from the Myanmar-Thai border, where a plate of pork offal skewers on sticks becomes a rare taste of home. A new fellow in Kayin State waxes lyrical about the joys of eating the typical & beloved street snack. kite-tales.org/en/article/p... #whatshappeninginmyanmar #journalism #myanmar

The Pork Offal Skewer Stall

kite-tales.org

Do you need a maths degree to read a food label? Kind of! This week's Thin Ink digs into the global fight over front-of-pack labelling, the single policy that has drawn more industry lawsuits than any other in our Big Food vs. The People investigation. news.thin-ink.net/p/whats-in-a...

What’s In A Label?

The battle over food labels and healthy diets

news.thin-ink.net

A diary from outside Insein Prison's gates, where every Myanmar New Year, the military junta pardon prisoners at a whim. Our fellow stood among them, months after her own release, searching a crowd of strangers for names she recognised from inside. kite-tales.org/en/article/p...

Prison gates

kite-tales.org

595 years. That is the combined length of litigation governments have had to fight just to defend basic public health policies against UPF giants. Yes, this week's Thin Ink is all about the investigation @lighthousereports.com published two days ago. news.thin-ink.net/p/big-food-v...

Big Food vs. The People

239 lawsuits. 595 years of litigation. One playbook.

news.thin-ink.net

#BigFood - out-of-control, causing huge damage to #PublicHealth, and fiercely opposed to the public interest. A few profit and the rest of us pay www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

‘If all else fails, sue’: how ultra-processed food firms are using the courts to obstruct health rules

Exclusive: Global investigation reveals 235 lawsuits have been brought against governments in five countries since 2010

theguardian.com

Latest investigation with @thinink.bsky.social, give it a read. Our food increasingly makes us sick, and we found that when governments try to protect us, they get sued by big food companies like Coke & Pepsi. The lawsuits add up to nearly six centuries! www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

Big Food vs. The People

We expose Big Food’s 239 lawsuits against life-saving policies

lighthousereports.com

This week's issue is a little late because I was waiting for a groundbreaking investigation by colleagues at @lighthousereports.com to be published. I return to a recurring theme: corporate concentration & power that benefits the few at the expense of the many. news.thin-ink.net/p/who-slaugh...

Who Slaughters the Competition?

2.5 years after violent protests, a look at what’s actually threatening French cattle farmers

news.thin-ink.net

At the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, journalist and co-founder of The Kite Tales @thinink.bsky.social reflected on returning home during Burma's democratic opening, voting for the first time, and the fragile hope that emerged in the interval between decades of military rule and the 2021 coup.

I'm in the throes of a monster deadline, so this week's Thin Ink is shorter than usual. But I still couldn't let the week pass without writing about: - trade law, one of the things that I think is chronically underrepresented in food systems conversations, news.thin-ink.net/p/trade-law-...

Trade, Law, & Livestock

An extension of last week’s theme + does the EU want to feed the world, or sell expensive prosciutto?

news.thin-ink.net

Commercial Determinants of Health sounds like academic jargon. It isn't. It means: your health isn't just shaped by your choices. It's shaped by what's available, affordable, & relentlessly marketed to you by companies with deeper pockets than most governments. news.thin-ink.net/p/the-invisi...

The Invisible Hand Making You Sick

Commercial Determinants of Health sounds like academic jargon. It isn’t.

news.thin-ink.net

A diary from a border town that has become increasingly lawless, leaving people afraid to even help each other and living in mutual suspicion instead. Our fellow experienced this first-hand when she had a motorcycle accident. kite-tales.org/en/article/l...

Living in Fear

kite-tales.org

What if one of the biggest problems with modern food systems is that we value food almost entirely by price? I spoke with @joseluisvivero.bsky.social about food as a commons, what the “tragedy of the commons” gets wrong, & how food might be governed differently. news.thin-ink.net/p/food-as-co...

Food As Commons for Beginners

A Conversation with Jose Luis Vivero Pol

news.thin-ink.net

DYK that... - European farms spent €16.4 billion on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser that never reached crops? - GHG emissions from rice paddies have doubled over past 70 years, making it one of agriculture’s biggest & least discussed climate problems? My latest: news.thin-ink.net/p/farmings-t...

Farming’s Triple Loss

Wasted fertiliser billions, rice paddies' rising emissions, & regen captured by Big Food

news.thin-ink.net

It was fantastic to attend the Oslo Freedom Forum earlier this month, to support @thinink.bsky.social promoting @kitetalesmm.bsky.social Her urgent message: Myanmar's destruction of independent media and return to dictatorship is not an exception - it's a warning www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUoL...

Thin Lei Win | From Dictatorship to Democracy and Back Again

YouTube video by Oslo Freedom Forum

youtube.com

Our co-founder @thinink.bsky.social speaking at this year's @oslofreedomforum.com www.instagram.com/reel/DZnHvE5...

This is the gutter racism and transphobia Anheuser-Busch was always buying. That it can't offer even pat disavowals of these ugly behaviors after the fact demonstrates the extent to which it is in thrall to/terrified of Trump and the MAGA base.

Anheuser-Busch Is Getting the Bigotry It Paid for With Bud Light's UFC Deal

June is Pride Month, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the social media feeds or press releases of the country’s biggest beverage-alcohol companies. Less than two years into the second Trump admi...

vinepair.com

Last week, my food systems & my Myanmar work collided. I went to a municipal farm in Oslo, cuddling sheep & talking to the manager, before going on stage telling 1,000+ people not to forget Myanmar. I also listened to many inspiring speakers who galvanised me. news.thin-ink.net/p/from-food-...

From Food Systems to Dictatorships and Back Again

Notes from Oslo, including how not to be Will Smith

news.thin-ink.net

Myanmar friends & contacts, pls share! "The Asia Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW) is seeking applicants for the position of Myanmar Researcher to investigate, analyze, and advocate against human rights abuses in Myanmar and related regional issues." job-boards.greenhouse.io/humanrightsw...