Blockchain Chicken Farm

By Xiaowei Wang

From AI-produced pork to blockchain in chicken rearing, this is a fascinating look at the political and social entanglements of technology in rural China.

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256

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A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Selected for the 2023 National Book Foundation's Science + Literature Program.

In Blockchain Chicken Farm, the technologist and writer Xiaowei Wang explores the political and social entanglements of technology in rural China. Their discoveries force them to challenge the standard idea that rural culture and people are backward, conservative, and intolerant. Instead, they find that rural China has not only adapted to rapid globalization but has actually innovated the technology we all use today.

From pork farmers using AI to produce the perfect pig, to disruptive luxury counterfeits and the political intersections of e-commerce villages, Wang unravels the ties between globalization, technology, agriculture, and commerce in unprecedented fashion. Accompanied by humorous “Sinofuturist” recipes that frame meals as they transform under new technology, Blockchain Chicken Farm is an original and probing look into innovation, connectivity, and collaboration in the digitized rural world.