The Green Harvest Box has arrived, helping farmers solve the problem of unsellable agricultural products.
Before we begin, let me tell you a little story
These past two days, the family got a new refrigerator, and Qinmei poured my sake lees and orange juice mustard sauce right onto the spot where the rapeseed had just sprouted. Oh, my goodness! Though I subscribe to Darwinism, I would never use such an extreme method to pick out the strongest seedlings. Of course, Qinmei does not understand this; she simply felt that seasonings of no use to her were an eyesore in her refrigerator, so she casually added them to the vegetable garden. And as for the rapeseed that got sprinkled there -- even though she knows which ones I planted, since they are unfamiliar to Qinmei and not planted by her own hand, based on experience, 99.9% of the time, whatever I paid money for will be hoed as weeds, and then something free or raised by someone else's labor will be planted in its place. The same thing happened again recently: the area around the fruit trees was clearly all weeds, but instead of pulling the deep-rooted, lush ones, Dad Zeng went out of his way to destroy the shallow-rooted plants I had spent money and effort to sow.
The yield that never gets past the threshold. Not quite business, more than mere acquaintance!
More than a few people have asked why I do not just rent land to farm. Just as more than a few have warned me that nobody runs a losing business the way you do. For someone of the younger generation like me, renting land to farm is like formally opening a business, so I have no intention of running a losing one! Just as I would never have opened a shop in Jiaxian without first steeling myself for losses. Then again, my own family has land -- what would be the point of going to the trouble of renting more? To expand the planted area, and make money. Since I have no plans to rent land, that means that although I currently help with some farm produce trading or services, I am not yet at the point of running a business. So for the sake of an ideology that sketches a new image of rural life, I would rather crawl along at a snail's pace and break even bit by bit.
Conversely, whether it is selling one's own produce, building one's own agricultural brand, or attaching oneself to a production-and-marketing group, the prerequisite is that you must reach a "stable or certain" volume of supply. For a plot of one fen, if you do not plant a single crop densely, the farmer will not even clear the threshold of a "certain" supply volume. Planting a single crop makes pest and disease problems more likely, so even a "stable" supply is a major problem. The only ways out are to improve the cultivation environment -- using either Chinese medicine or Western medicine, as it were -- or to invest in facilities and equipment for control, or else to replicate experience and expand the planted area.
But then again. The reason small-scale farmers can only stay small-scale, can only plant a few fen or a few ping, must be that there are reasons even hard work cannot overcome. For instance, an elderly woman in my village could well have gone up to Taipei to enjoy her grandchildren and a comfortable retirement, yet every evening she pushes a food-waste cart along the road collecting kitchen scraps. Every family has its own hard story to tell; digging to the bottom only hurts yourself, so better to quietly let the free auction market push you around -- that is the safer bet. So, as a half-entered farmer, the last thing I want to do is deliberately make things difficult for, or exploit, those seemingly passive small farming households. The ultimate goal is to make them part of the supply list. That is to say, when each of us is lucky enough to have a large volume, it goes to the wholesaler; when the volume is small, it is left to the ideal!
It is currently the peak season for avocados. We cannot disrupt the market price too much, so even selling them one by one with shipping included keeps the price within a reasonable range. Green Pick Box (whatever box) small-quantity tasting price, 80 yuan each! Free shipping for two or more. That ought to work, right?
※ To avoid disappointment, please use the cash-on-delivery pre-order model as much as possible.
※ For those who miss out, the order form will be kept until the next production season, and after being notified again, shipments will be allocated in order.
※ For those who miss out, the cash-on-delivery handling fee will be waived.
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Cash on delivery, plus a 30 yuan handling fee
Order form page: http://urinntagari.wix.com/3300
Bank transfer and home delivery, no handling fee.
Buy on Ruten: http://goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?21407174760661
Fruit size: 400-600 grams plus or minus 30 / Selection method: based on the specifications of the post office home delivery box
Main source of farm produce supply: the Qin and Zeng families of Shanlin, others are ad-hoc