South Taiwan Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Technology has been participating in agriculture's domain for more than three years. We found those farmers in Taiwan have outstanding abilities in planting high- quality products. However, agriculture industry chain has been so long, such as planting, harvesting, cleaning, packaging, marketing, etc. Owing to farmers' limited capability, they sell high-quality products to the general market at low prices. Resulting in those friendly farmers unable to obtain relative profits, this phenomenon has greatly affected farmers’ willingness to invest in friendly farming. For example, a farmer who wants to be friendly to a sustainable environment has invested three years in growing guava in the organic transition period. But the organic fruit looks bad and also farmers don't have other ways to sell, they could just send organic guavas to the general market. It was obvious, the purchase price of organic products is much lower than general products. To those farmers, the babies which took care of their lives were sold at a low price. In the end, farmers could only give up and turn back to original planting way…
Facing the problems above, the center has founded a social enterprise with farmers call "Farming International Co., Ltd."(Hereinafter referred to as Farming). Farming's core idea is "Rural innovation, public welfare transformation". Rural innovation means we gather those farmers who are willing to be friendly farming, altruistic and mutual benefit of small and medium farmers. Subvert the mode that you solo, though the standardization common ship goods and share benefits. Achieve innovation and transformation in rural areas. Public welfare transformation means Farming is not only supplies resources but introduces the government, industry, colleges and our research center into rural areas. We lead those farmers to learn together and cultivate new ideas and abilities. The most important thing is to build a sustainable environment. Supports the friendly farmers through gathering the preorders by enterprises. Help friendly agriculture to sustainably operate the innovative agricultural platform ecosystem.
The company is committed to linking multi-party resources and participants to join the ecosystem, and hopes that different stakeholders will connect with each other through value activities under the same concept. On the production side, there are currently 7 leading farmers who lead partners to expand production. The ecosystem has cooperated with 120 farmers so far. On the consumer side, it has accumulated shopping support from 40 CSR companies, 32 group buyers, and more than 700 consumers. On the third-party service side, 17 channels and industry such as Funb.com, Hi-Life, buy123.tw, Fastbuy.com, and Afu Food Bank, etc were linked and imported the energy of colleges, such as National Sun Yat-sen University, National Taitung University, Zhengxiu University of Science and Technology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, operating ecosystem activities, operating platforms, assisting farmers and producing teaching plans, etc., accumulating 263 students, and also cooperated with private organizations, such as PingTung Hitree Farmers' Alliance.
Although the center has been deeply involved in agricultural field for 3 years, it has mainly focused on development and management stakeholders in the past 2 years. This year is one of the important milestones in the construction of the ecosystem. It was held on 8/8 (Saturday). The “伴你左柚” activity brought ecosystem partners together. The number of participants in the activity was nearly 115, including 60 corporate representatives, such as Taiwan Hopax Chemicals Mfg. Co. Ltd, Jiu Zhen Nan Co., Ltd., and WeLeader BIO Co., Ltd., which not only supported Eco-Friendly Farming with actual pre-orders, but also called for Other companies responded by vigorously exerting their corporate influence, and the event created a performance of 2,000 boxes (approximately 10,000 catties) pre-purchased by Pomelo, and a revenue of approximately 1.09 million NT dollars.
The goal of “伴你左柚” activity was to connect the participants in the ecosystem. (1) Business: The value of corporate social responsibility was reflected in the ecological tour of the organic orchard. (2) Farmers: Farmers in different regions (Shiaying, Madou, Zuozhen) and products (Pomelo, Dragon Fruit) could learn from each other and build a consensus. (3)Colleges: Cross-school cooperation has achieved the goal of practicing USR. After that, the second cascade of activities was held on 9/5 (Saturday) following this pattern, with professors and students of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology as the organizers of the activities, achieving the goal of USR local connection and rearing students.
Farming hopes to replicate this innovative business model in rural Taiwan and expand influence to more regions. Therefore, in addition to Tainan Madou, there have 9 small farmer settlements established in Tainan (Guava, Pomelo, Mango), Kaohsiung (Pineapple), and Pingtung (Passion fruit, Mango, Lemon, Dragon fruit, Indian jujube).
This plan will continue to gather energy for government, industry, colleges, and link stakeholders with the Farming, so as to realize technological empowerment to enhance the ability and benefits of farmers, and assist agricultural industry cluster development and create value through resource sharing. Finally, let us create a moving forward together, let this concept of mutual prosperity and mutual benefit pass on from generation to generation, and establish a sustainable and innovative agricultural ecosystem!