Contract Farming and Custom Cultivation: A Truly Compassionate Good Deal in Agriculture

In addition to having the essence of CSA, "contract farming with commissioned cultivation" rebuilds a new transactional relationship among farmers, the land, and the contract holders.

This report is meant to guide everyone to discover the profound effects that "contract farming with commissioned cultivation" brings to food health and the cleanliness of the land.

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Origin

The contract farming with commissioned cultivation at Nan'ao Natural Farm developed into what it is today through a path walked together by customers and Nan'ao Natural Farm.

Looking back to early 2010, we had just rented 12 jia of land through the Small Landlord, Big Tenant Farmer program. Amid the chaos, we were clearing and preparing the land on one hand and transplanting rice seedlings on the other, when we successively received requests from Jingyi, Ben, Sandy, Jingyuan, Meifang, Yajun… and others who took the initiative to reserve contract farming. I found that their original intention was simply to support this kind of natural farming that is extremely friendly to the land. They did not ask how much rice they could get; they only asked how much money was needed per fen of land.

This experience made me realize that if farmers can first receive customers' orders for their cultivation, farmers' income and risks can be stably secured. At the same time, I also felt that as long as something is a good and right thing, helpful people are always everywhere.

Following the guidance of these helpful people, Nan'ao Natural Farm saw the crux of Taiwan's land problems and the way to solve them. So Nan'ao Natural Farm embarked on the path of contract farming with commissioned cultivation.

What is contract farming with commissioned cultivation?

"Contract farming with commissioned cultivation," as advocated by Nan'ao Natural Farm, is a new system that reconstructs the relationship among farmers, the land, and the contract holders. This system, through the method of fixed-price pre-purchase, transforms the original "food consumer" into the "owner of the crop," while the farmer becomes the contract holder's partner in commissioned cultivation. In such a contract farming with commissioned cultivation framework, the owner of the food commissions the farmer to cultivate and care for the crop in a land-friendly farming way, so that the crop owner can obtain safe and healthy food, while the farmer obtains secured income.

The disease of Taiwan's land

I found that the key source of the deterioration of Taiwan's farmland and the environmental degradation connected to it is the conflict of interests in which "consumers want healthy food, but farmers want maximum profit." Although farmers' crops reaching consumers through distribution channels already has a history of several thousand years, in this era clever humans discovered that fertilizers and pesticides can manipulate crop yield and appearance. So, for profit, they were used in large amounts without restraint, until several decades later people discovered that this method of forcibly taking from the land and forcibly taking from the crops made us pay unbearable costs in health and environment.

Searching for a solution

I found a very simple truth. The vegetables Mom grows do not need certification, because what is grown is for her own family to eat; this kind of trust is natural. And over the past several decades, farmers have relied on pesticides and fertilizers to increase production in pursuit of profit, and the distrust that farmers might secretly use pesticides or recklessly add fertilizer is also natural. And this distrust also gave rise to today's organic certification system.

The benefits of contract farming with commissioned cultivation

If we give farmers a fixed income and reserve in advance all of the future harvest of the crops, that is, let consumers become the owners of these crops, then one of the most important cores here is that "no matter how much the harvest is, it belongs to the contract holder." This is the practice of "sharing risks and sharing the harvest." The effect of this kind of contract agreement is that farmers no longer violate the rules out of fear of loss or the desire to harvest more; all they need to do is farm faithfully. In this way, the cleanliness and health of food gain a natural and humane guarantee, and more importantly, the cultivated land also gains clean vitality.

The current state of organic Taiwan

Most people are not quite able to realize that although "organic" seems to fill our surroundings, in fact, in 2011, of Taiwan's 800,000 hectares of farmland, only 5,000 hectares were organic farmland. This proportion is not even 1%! That is, 99% of the daily diet of Taiwan's people still comes from crops grown with pesticides and fertilizers, which means 99% of the farmland is still grown with pesticides and fertilizers!

Judging from this figure, we must admit that organic farmland and organic food remain insignificant in Taiwan, and it can even be said that our island and our health still cannot escape an even worsening predicament.

Old farmers are the true guardians of the land

Because the land cannot support young people, they can only leave the countryside, leaving behind old farmers who cannot leave the land (average age 65), and they can only farm using the least laborious and least troublesome methods, such as herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers.

With the proportion of organic farming still so small today, not to mention how insignificant the much-talked-about "new farmers" are, we must realize that these old farmers are the guardians of our land; otherwise they become the destroyers of our land environment!

A simple and easy method

If we ask old farmers to pass complex certification procedures, distinguish which are qualified and which are not, and we also ask old farmers who have never held a pen in their lives to write production records, is that not a bit unrealistic?

But if we change the method and give old farmers a fixed income, only requiring old farmers to faithfully care for the crops, is that not very easy?

If we do not want to spend resources and energy on the complicated matters arising from distrust, then contract farming with commissioned cultivation is the right way.

The door to organic

Actually, the essence of the source of the problem is not complicated. Although breaking through the difficulty is truly not easy, take a look at this short film, The Door to Organic. Should we not reflect on whether we have opened the wrong door on our organic path? If so many years of policy advocacy, encouragement, and subsidies still cannot even reach 1%, should we not think about what to do?

No matter what kind of organic provisions we set, if we want to rely on means and methods such as advocacy, inspection, spot checks, investigation, and punishment, we are at every moment fighting against human nature's pursuit of profit.

We only need to switch to a path that does not fight against human nature. We give farmers the guarantee of a fixed income, let farmers naturally stand together with us consumers, and farmers will then naturally stand together with our land environment, and many tedious details that would be done based on distrust also become superfluous. This kind of friendly transaction lowers the cost of farming and growing crops, lowers marketing costs, and thus lowers the price at which consumers obtain food, thereby opening a broader path to organic!

Passion and practice

Since I discovered this simple truth, I have also gradually come to understand that the expansion of contract farming with commissioned cultivation can not only mass-produce clean food, but also drive the benefit of mass-producing clean land. Therefore, promoting contract farming with commissioned cultivation has become the passionate driving force in my life. Of course, I know that Nan'ao Natural Farm must first prove for itself that this is an agricultural economic model that can support farmers operationally and economically, and this is exactly what we are working hard on.

Of course I also know that if the goal of "mass-producing clean food, mass-producing clean land" is to be achieved, it is impossible to rely only on Nan'ao Natural Farm with just a few people. That is, it is necessary to return to the old farmers who truly own the land. Therefore, in addition to Nan'ao Natural Farm expanding its own cultivated area, more importantly, it is necessary to persuade consumers to directly contract with farmers for commissioned cultivation, or to help farmers establish a new model of contract farming with commissioned cultivation. Only in this way is it possible to lead more consumers and more farmers to walk together on the path of contract farming with commissioned cultivation.

A truly compassionate transaction

I found that contract farming with commissioned cultivation not only overturns the past transactional structure, but is also a good transaction that follows human nature and encourages the good side of human nature.

The beauty of this system lies in that it does not rely on moral persuasion, nor does it need to rely on inspection, but instead naturally operates in accordance with human nature, because such a system places farmers and food consumers on the same side. Precisely because it is "in line with human nature," it can more smoothly realize the ideal of sustainable farming.

Think about it: contract farming with commissioned cultivation lets the crop owner obtain healthy food, which is compassion for one's own body.

Think about it: contract farming with commissioned cultivation gives farmers farming security, so that farmers no longer carry the heavy shadow of harming the land. This is compassion for farmers.

Think about it: contract farming with commissioned cultivation, from the institutional level, stops farmers from forcibly taking from the land and crops for profit. Thus, farmers become the true guardians of the land. This is compassion for the earth.

Therefore, this is a good transaction that is compassionate to people, to living beings, and to the earth.

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