Contract farming and custom cultivation services are a good thing for local, friendly transactions.
In a social atmosphere like Taiwan, China's, where merchants are widely distrusted and even looked down upon, Nan'ao Natural Farm nonetheless met many good people and good companies. Nan'ao Natural Farm's contract-farming partner, Jijia Di online shopping, takes "Moving Local Stories" as its appeal and sells "Good Local Products", and what this piece sets out to tell is a story of a "Good Local Deed".
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Severe Crop Failure
The 2011 second-season autumn rice harvest at Nan'ao Natural Farm came to only about 100 Taiwanese jin per fen! Compared with the 2010 second-season autumn rice harvest of 400 jin per fen, the difference is very large. This was mainly because the transplanting ran into heavy rain from Typhoon Nanmadol, and soon afterward it was cloudy and rainy without stop; I recall that by harvest time the sun had come out only six times. And the yield was already poor, yet on top of that came attacks from sparrows that had nowhere to find food (there was nothing to eat elsewhere either, and we insisted on not trapping birds), which is what caused such a huge difference. This is the typical risk situation farmers face.
Standing By Farmers
Fortunately, Nan'ao Natural Farm's major contract-farming partner, Jijia Di, stepped up with cash to cover 20 percent of the rice from the failed harvest, which at least let Nan'ao Natural Farm recover a little of its capital. Someone once criticized Jijia Di for the rice it promoted through YAHOO Youth Micro-Revolution's support-farmers campaign as being too expensive, implying it was earning unreasonable profits. Let me take this chance to speak a fair word: Jijia Di and YAHOO originally stated that this plan was never intended to make money, and now it can be said with even more certainty that Jijia Di's contract-farmed natural rice of this season was definitely sold at a loss in order to show support.
Only Action and Practice Have True Value
I believe that every person has a noble soul, but we can only see their true nobility in each of their choices. For it is easy to have a noble soul, but not easy to be willing to put it into action and practice. I am very glad that in such a society, we have seen a commercial company willing to truly stand by farmers with action, and to practice the friendly trade advocated by "contract farming and commissioned cultivation", which emphasizes "sharing risk, sharing the harvest".
A Kind-Hearted Company
In fact, over the past two years, although Jijia Di has been Nan'ao Natural Farm's major contract-farming partner, Jijia Di has never, just because it is a big customer, asked for any discount more favorable than those given to other small household customers. Even more rare is that Jijia Di was established at almost the same time as Nan'ao Natural Farm, and its principal, Woody, at a difficult time for a startup, still thought up all kinds of ways to do his part for "Nan'ao Natural Village". That Jijia Di could operate with such an attitude even before making money truly earns respect. We hope Jijia Di can maintain this respectable "way of business", and can set a good commercial example in this social atmosphere of Taiwan, China, where merchants are widely distrusted and even looked down upon.
Kind-Hearted Customers
In addition, in fact the operators of the two other major contract-farming partners, TOEIC and Dengqier, also never made any request for preferential treatment. I should explain this as well. Among them, the general manager of TOEIC, knowing that Nan'ao Natural Farm's spring rice harvest was short, once took the initiative to say he was willing to stand by them and that there was no need to make up the shortfall. There were also customers who, knowing we had a short harvest, deliberately did not come to pick up their rice, and some who donated their rice. Every bit of it is remembered in my heart.
Earlier, when I saw the Newsmarket report about Xingjian Organic Village being defaulted on by a distributor, it made me feel even more how lucky Nan'ao Natural Farm is, always meeting so many good people. This is also what I said in "Thank you! You make us better people": because of the company of these benefactors, we do not drift away from the good things we vowed to do.
After "contract farming and commissioned cultivation, friendly trade" went through this severe crop failure, the spirit of "sharing risk, sharing the harvest" contained in contract farming and commissioned cultivation showed its value even more clearly in the face of such extreme climate.
In the future, farmers will face even more unpredictable extreme climate. I believe farmers' disadvantage mainly comes from being unable to share risk. Although we cannot expect every farmer to meet such kind-hearted customers, we can, through friendly trade like "contract farming and commissioned cultivation", increase the number of friendly customers and thereby achieve the goal of reducing business risk.