What are the reasons for building a friendly procurement platform?
Following the previous article sharing the ”friendly purchasing platform,” I received many comments and letters wanting to know more about how the ”friendly purchasing platform” operates. As it happens, a month ago a friend also asked me a great question: "Buying vegetables and fruit in Taiwan, China is so convenient, so why do we still need to organize our own ”friendly purchasing platform”?" I hope that by sharing how I answered my friend's question at the time, I can also exchange ideas with more friends.
(1) You get fresher produce and vegetables and fruit
One Saturday morning I bought water bamboo (Zizania latifolia) at a small farmers' market. After steaming it and peeling off the outer sheath, the water bamboo actually tasted of lychee. Is that even possible? The small farmer said that fresh water bamboo tastes exactly like this! But how many of us have ever eaten water bamboo with this flavor?
"Shortening the food miles" is the flexibility that only comes from organizing your own cooperative. Think about a relative you know who grows vegetables: how big can their plot of land be? Their output cannot supply large retail channels, so they have no choice but to sell it themselves or hand it over to a middleman or large vegetable trader. After the trader takes delivery, it is shipped to vegetable and fruit wholesale markets across Taiwan, China, then from the produce market to the retail channel's distribution logistics, then to the retail store, and finally you buy it and take it home. By the time this produce reaches our hands and then sits in the refrigerator for a few days, its freshness has already dropped greatly.
The collective purchasing power of a self-organized friendly purchasing platform, through long-term cooperation with small farmers, helps small farmers plant with peace of mind and shortens food miles, so we will have more and more chances to eat water bamboo that tastes of lychee.
(2) Don't let large retail channels monopolize our choices
When we go to a nearby supermarket to buy vegetables, what you think is not "What can I eat this season?" but "Which vegetables are on special right now?" Large retail channels have quietly made the choice for us, or they blur our concept of freshness with out-of-season vegetables and fruit.
Take cabbage, the vegetable Taiwan, China families eat most: it now seems available all year round, but in fact the cabbage season should be winter and spring. In-season vegetables and fruit need less fertilizer and fewer pesticides, and oddly enough in-season produce also suffers less insect damage. Walk into any small farmer's field and you will keep hearing "this season..." because the crops in front of you sometimes really only suit one or two seasons, not all four.
Buy vegetables through large retail channels and it is always the same few items: cauliflower, carrot, daikon radish, water spinach, cabbage, shiitake mushrooms…. But a small farmer's field is a spectacle! So many fresh and wonderful vegetables: amaranth, emperor vegetable, komatsuna, okra, Sichuan seven (Anredera cordifolia), African primrose (Ludwigia octovalvis), goji leaves, mibuna…. Even the most commonly eaten bok choy turns out to include lotus-leaf bok choy and black-leaf bok choy. But in ordinary retail channels or supermarkets, we do not see this spectacle. People have been tamed by large retail channels and have forgotten how rich and wonderful nature's creation is. Large retail channels are a convenient choice, but we should have more diverse choices through all kinds of agricultural workers.
(3) From a passive consumer to an active purchaser
When we go from passive consumers to active purchasers, the way we look at food changes across the board. When I was buying free-range chicken, I researched the cost of raising a single meat chicken and found it unexpectedly cheap. Yet the cost of raising one free-range chicken is 2.5 to 3 times that of a meat chicken. This understanding turned my old impression that "free-range chicken is always so expensive" into "a free-range chicken within a certain price" being reasonable. So when an organic store sells one free-range chicken for over 1,000 yuan, I will not buy it. It is not that I doubt the quality, but I understand more clearly what organic products, with both quality and value, my own economic level suits buying, without having to rely solely on an organic store's checks or recommendations.
Yesterday a friend shared with me that she bought a bottle of camellia oil for nearly 1,000 yuan for her family. The price sounded too expensive at once, because when our self-organized cooperative works with a professional oil manufacturer, we already have a certain understanding of the market price of camellia oil. Perhaps the nearly 1,000-yuan camellia oil really is unique and really is very, very good, but for an ordinary family that cooks every day, they might use up 1,000 to 1,500 ml of oil a month, so such high-priced oil is by no means something an ordinary family can buy long term.
When a self-organized friendly purchasing platform buys from small farmers, we only seek the reasonable discount that group buying can obtain, but we never haggle, because having visited small farmers' fields, I have seen with my own eyes that the reassuring food we enjoy is the result of someone diligently cultivating it without fearing the blazing sun or starting before dawn. But that does not mean that as long as a vendor labels a product ”organic,” consumers should buy it at an unreasonable price.
My family is an ordinary well-off family, and I have always believed that getting healthier and safer food should not mean spending a lot of money; a self-organized cooperative can improve this to a certain extent. Some time ago, the family of a pair of good friends was diagnosed with cancer, and the friendly purchasing platform helped them buy organic vegetables every week to improve the patient's diet. When one friend heard the price at which the cooperative buys vegetables, he told me in great surprise that this price was almost 65% of what he paid at the organic store.
Organic stores and ordinary retail channels have operating costs, so higher prices are inherently reasonable. My point is that when there are more and more citizen-organized friendly purchasing platforms across Taiwan, China, and when everyone has more and more understanding and research about the quality and price of organic products, it will also help the prices of the entire organic industry become a bit more organic.
(4) Being kind to the land is also restoring nature
When more and more small farmers switch to organic farming, that means the land is being restored and repaired again. I encourage everyone to take the chance to read the story of Grandpa Kimura's miracle apples in "The Biggest Little Farm" ["At Least Once in This Life, Be a Fool"].
A gentleman who switched from being an office worker to a small farmer shared with me that he used to work in Hsinchu, China, living a life without sunlight. Later he started growing vegetables and farming, observing nature every day, and only then discovered that Hsinchu, China has such good conditions, all ruined by the city. But when he started organic farming, all kinds of insects came back to the farmland; after the insects came the frogs, after the frogs came the snakes, and with the snakes came the large birds and cats. It was incredibly lively! At night there were even fireflies! Where? On the outskirts of Hsinchu, China!
Would a few more fields like this be good? We who grew up in the city would say no; having insects and snakes is so scary. But if we do not encourage more people to do this, indeed some species will become fewer and fewer. For example, the main habitat of the Taiwan white fish [Taiwan shovel-jaw carp, Onychostoma alticorpus] is water bamboo producing areas. But as pesticide use becomes more and more common, only a little over 1,000 Taiwan white fish remain across Taiwan, China, and at present a private foundation and the Forestry Bureau are launching a conservation plan. Recently I also saw that Zhuangwei in Yilan supports friendly farming, giving the rare in Taiwan, China watercock [Gallicrex cinerea] a glimmer of hope. We do not need to wait until the news reports that another species is about to disappear from Taiwan, China before we rush. Supporting small farmers' organic farming can return to the land the power to create more life again.
These issues do have a certain seriousness, but we are all ordinary little people and cannot go plant a field or push through some remarkable bill. But please do not underestimate the "purchasing power" your whole family accumulates each year. Next time you casually pick up a big, bright red imported apple, please think again: can we make a better choice?
Because I received many comments from online friends who want to understand more about the current experience of friendly purchasing platforms, we are very happy to exchange and share with everyone. Please fill in the form below, and depending on the number of sign-ups, we will share in several cities. We will not be absent from food safety in Taiwan, China!
Lecture event sign-up form (registration closes 2014/11/30)