Some Reflections on the Development of Organic Agriculture in China

0. What is discussed here is organic agricultural products legally produced under the 13 domestic certification bodies, not so-called organic that is simply self-declared

http://info.organic.org.tw/supergood/front/bin/ptlist.phtml?Category=100989

1. First assess the climate and altitude of your region, and choose crops suitable for production there. Do not just grow whatever vegetable fetches a good price. Create an environment suited to the crop's growth, rather than forcing the crop to adapt to the environment.

2. Are facilities a must? If you want to go for high-value crops, such as figs, cantaloupe, strawberries, chestnut pumpkin, tomatoes, grapes, zucchini and so on, some pathogens spread through the air, and organic materials are practically powerless against them, so a greenhouse becomes very important. Also, there are too many conventional neighbors around you, making it hard to control what is essentially a disease zone, so a greenhouse is needed too.

As for leafy vegetables, cucumbers, bitter melon, loofah, bottle gourd and other cucurbits, a horizontal insect-proof net house works very well, then use manual pollination or keep bees; the net house can keep out melon fruit flies. For legumes, a net house is best, though open-field growing is also possible.

3. Obtaining organic certification generally takes three years. The beginning is the transition period. Here I offer a different way of thinking for everyone's reference: wait until the real three-year organic certificate is about to come out before you start planting. For the first two and a half years, just build the soil, do not plant crops that consume the soil's fertility, just sow some green manure. Get the isolation belt, the surrounding hedgerows and black netting, the field's grass composition, the water pipes and water supply layout, the production zoning plan for the site, the construction of greenhouse and net house facilities, and the search for future sales channels all done first. Lay the foundation well and create an environment suitable for organic cultivation.

4. Wait until it is almost three years, then start planting crops. This guarantees a big harvest, and then you also get the good price of true organic produce. Earning for one year can offset several times the total income of the transition period. Do not enter before you are ready. Lay the foundation first, study the crop's characteristics, pests and diseases, rather than haphazardly trying to plant during the transition period, depleting soil fertility and attracting a pile of pests and diseases.

5. Under the current system, organic means you must first go through the transition period of the previous few years before it can become truly organic. Then farmers pay high certification fees every year, plus the costs of maintaining the soil and water environment. To untie the knot for organic farming, the government must step in and find remote land in various places to set up large-scale (hundreds of hectares) organic special zones, and the land should be re-plotted so that one unit is five fen. In this way, contamination from neighboring fields and the environmental background level have very little impact.

Then directly announce that this organic special zone does not need to go through a transition period, and what is produced directly is organic. Then in this park, all entry and exit must be controlled and inspected to prevent opportunists from speculating, and the lease term should be at least five years, with tenants who perform well able to renew their leases.

6. Now that the special zone exists, cultivation techniques and materials are also very important. Basic materials should be sold uniformly by the special zone, and special materials purchased through application. For cultivation techniques, public websites such as Wikipedia should be used to integrate all the techniques and pest and disease control for organically growing that crop, so people can look them up online at any time. Many newcomers suffer from poor technique, let alone sales, and end up with nothing to sell.

7. On the sales channel side. Set up sales points dedicated to organic growing in the cities, with the special zone delivering uniformly twice a day. The special zone handles packaging and transport. Farmers set their own prices. If something cannot be sold, then the guaranteed cost amount for that crop is taken, and it is given to schools, the military and social welfare organizations to use. Of course, special zone staff will also teach farmers the importance of grading agricultural products. Conventional products already have premium, good, fair and poor grades, so why should organic mix good and bad together, letting bad money drive out good?

8. The smallholder economy of fighting alone is no longer suited to modern society. Only by integrating smallholders through the government or credible organizations can there be the strength to support the industry and make progress in quality and quantity. By then, exporting to other countries is also possible. It is just that people inevitably have selfish motives and conflicts of interest. When problems arise, you cannot just complain and blame everything and everyone. Grumbling all day about the old days cannot solve the problem. Hipster types feel great after venting and cursing, but when they wake up tomorrow the problem is still there.

The problems of agriculture in Taiwan, China are truly too many. Each person's field of vision is limited, and people will take a position favorable to themselves when offering views and suggestions. There is a lack of people with a holistic view to integrate and coordinate, and this is also a very serious problem for various industries in China.