I agree, raccoon. Your early years of nocturnal foraging, raiding garbage bins, and climbing trees have obviously given you a good handle on these issues.
Farmers are really their own worst enemy. Instead of organising and educating themselves, they accept that they’re just “simple folk” and do whatever they’re told by “smarter” middlemen, salesmen, and politicians. Farmers actually have huge political power, and they don’t even realise it. Without them, any country is on its knees. I suppose, traditionally, they’ve always been under the boot and perhaps carry some sort of genetic memory of what happens to farmers when they get uppity.
Fortunately, there is a new breed of young farmers - degree-educated, business-minded, IT-savvy - who are much less likely to listen to bullshit from idiots in suits. Many of them have concluded for themselves that intensive, chemical-fed agriculture just doesn’t work. They can do the numbers and join the dots, and the conclusions are inescapable. These people will, I think, set things right eventually.
The word ‘organic’ is meaningless, and the certification bodies that exist today are worse than useless. They’re mostly just employment agencies for workshy sociology graduates. Their fees are outrageous, and the paperwork burdensome and restrictive (they all have their own view on what “organic” means). The net result is that they add cost without adding value. I can’t help wondering if this is deliberate, because it helps sabotage the market for quality produce.
It’s in the nature of any third-party consultancy is that they will charge high inspection fees. TUV and UL are no different. The UK implementation of CE marking is (IMO) much better. It allows self-certification, but God help you if you’re found to have skipped your due diligence or lied on your declaration. It works well, because most manufacturers have a reputation to uphold, they know that products are policed, and even the small guy can afford the relatively low costs involved in good design, basic testing, and self-certification.
I think this model would work better for farmers, not least because there are so many different ways of doing “organic”. In my head, I imagined that the trading platform would function as a sort of ad-hoc rating system too: not just for presence/absence of chemicals, but general quality. Universities could offer testing or inspection for farmers who wanted it, and they could publish a customized report on the farmer’s trading page. Otherwise, consumers (or small retailers) could post “ratings” for produce purchased, just like eBay.
Exactly. I think middlemen would inevitably arise - the farming equivalent of drop-shippers - but that’s fine. It would genuinely enhance efficiency (most farmers won’t want packing and shipping operations on-site). They’d be providing a service to the farmers, rather than the farmer being beholden to them as bulk-buyers. There would also be Groupon-like guys at the other end doing what you did with the lychees. It would make sense if these people - ‘packers’ and ‘unpackers’ - were explicitly brought into the trading platform.
Where I see the most potential is that farmers could interact directly with customers. Whereas supermarkets insist they’re “providing what customers want”, a trading platform really could elicit the Voice of the Customer. They could post requests for things they want, or just generally make their feelings known. A farmer could also sell “futures”: he might walk around the farm and observe the papaya will be ready X days from now and post a status update. Buyers could then make early bids. Restaurants could plan special menus based on known availability of ultra-fresh produce.
Integrate this with an automated transport network and you could get food from farm to table literally within the hour. This is what I’m aiming for, but we won’t see it happen until the oil runs out.
It’s complicated. There are workarounds that will allow me to actually get on with the project, but very suboptimal ones.