Hundreds of thousands of jin of organic turmeric may be a total loss; eighty farming friends in Taitung, China, were deceived in contract farming

Miss Ou's January 27 letter of explanation:

Here I (Miss Ou) would like to give the public a brief explanation. For the past seventeen years I worked in the beauty industry in downtown Taitung, but a few years ago I fell and injured my neck and had steel plates implanted, so I was no longer suited to continue working in beauty, and therefore returned to my old home in Beinan to find another way to make a living, deciding to take up farming and grow organic turmeric, but I ran into difficulties with sales channels, so I sought resources and assistance online.

We are currently preparing to establish an indigenous turmeric farmers' cooperative and seek a new sales platform. I am very grateful for the concern from all quarters, and I ask you to continue to give us your guidance, so that our organic turmeric has a chance to meet consumers with better quality and more channels of contact. Thank you very much.

Editorial note, January 26 announcement:

After this news article was published, the main interviewee in the piece said she was under great pressure; aside from being "concerned about," quite a few local farming friends still held expectations of the wholesaler, and therefore hoped the interviewee would retract her words. So on the evening of the 26th, the interviewee posted a statement on her personal Facebook, retracting her words and saying the matter was not true and that no one had been cheated. After Miss Ou retracted her words, NewsMarket immediately contacted her, and Miss Ou said she had indeed been under great pressure, and therefore had no choice but to post such a statement on Facebook, but she immediately took it down afterward, saying that NewsMarket had not written anything carelessly, and this point must also be clarified with everyone.

NewsMarket emphasizes once again that regarding the content of the article, NewsMarket's reporter conducted a detailed interview with the person concerned, and there is written information from the interview process; if necessary we will make the interview records public. In addition, a farming friend who had once been in contact with that wholesaler wrote to us to tell of how he too was almost cheated, so the news content is confirmed to be correct.

This is the first time NewsMarket has encountered a situation where an interviewee retracted her words, but we believe the interviewee truly came under great pressure, and we are very sorry for the trouble this has caused everyone! As to whether to continue offering assistance to the interviewee, please think it over again, thank you everyone!

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After seventeen years working in beauty and body care in downtown Taitung, Miss Ou decided to return home to farm, growing organic turmeric in the area of Dongxing New Village in Beinan Township. At first a wholesaler entered into a contract farming arrangement with her, with a verbal agreement to buy at a guaranteed price. Recently this batch of crops was harvested one after another, but the wholesaler vanished into thin air, disappearing without a trace. With the New Year approaching, Miss Ou was anxious beyond measure, because what would accompany her into the New Year was over a million in costs that might never be recovered, and tens of thousands of jin of organic turmeric with no idea how to sell it.

Returning home to farm, only to run into a contract farming dispute

But Miss Ou did not lose heart; she decided to find a new sales outlet. Her initial cost for buying turmeric seedlings was 200 yuan per jin, and now she planned to sell at 120 yuan per jin, just hoping to turn it into cash. She said: "Now I just hope to recover part of the money I put in, and not lose everything. In the future I will keep growing organic turmeric well, and rebuild my sales channels."

When she mentioned her situation online, she encountered quite a few voices of doubt, such as "Don't just see that someone else's business is good and rush to grow it yourself. Turmeric is a good thing, but many people haven't built up their sales channels well, thinking that if they grow it well someone will come and buy it at a high price; this is a very risky thing." and "If you've just opened a beauty salon, with everything ready, but no one comes to spend money, what do you think the problem is?"

To these responses, Miss Ou said with a bitter smile: "They're all right; I trusted people too much. But the reason I invested in the first place was that on one hand I truly wanted to take up organic farming, and on the other hand it was because the wholesaler said he would buy at a guaranteed price, so we spent the money to do it!"

Cai Niantai, a lecturer in the Department of Information Management at National Taitung College who has long studied agricultural production and marketing, took the initiative to contact Miss Ou, this farming friend, hoping to offer help with sales. He thought that the act of cheating nearly eighty farming friends at once was "truly despicable," but he thought that suing the wholesaler would be time-consuming and drawn-out, and by the time the turmeric all rotted the farmers still might not get their money; "right now we should more actively sell this batch of organic turmeric, and not let the farming friends' losses be too great."

With the New Year approaching, how to get through this hard pass

Miss Ou kept looking for an outlet for her organic turmeric. She said her organic turmeric can be made into home ingredients; turmeric chicken soup and turmeric rice are both good ways to cook it, and ordinary households are welcome to buy from her. She sought orders from biotech companies or pharmaceutical factories, and also welcomed other wholesalers to buy wholesale. In short, she tried hard at every method.

In the few days before the New Year, Miss Ou kept working hard at online marketing. Late at night she posted: "I grow organic turmeric in Taitung, the yield is very large, but I don't know how to sell it; if you need some you can contact me! Thank you! My phone number is 0977151286, [email protected]" She went out at dawn to continue a whole day of farm work. "If any customer is willing to come buy my organic turmeric, 120 yuan per jin, my family and I will work hard harvesting every day, just to exchange it for a little cash and get us through this hard time."