Natural selection
In 2006, China added 12 per cent to the global stock of 'organically farmed land', according to a report by online newspaper Global Post. However, stories of fraud abound.
Michael Pollan, a professor of science and environmental journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, recalls how a student investigating organic farming on the mainland found fraudulently labelled 'organic' products and a self-professed 'organic' farmer who 'essentially thought it was a word that was very popular with Americans, as indeed it is'.
The word is also popular in Hong Kong and some local businesses are striving to deliver legitimate organic produce to the city's dining tables without paying for it to be transported from far- away countries, which substantially increases the environmental impact of the food's distribution.
Last month, Hong Kong- based Homegrown Foods (www. homegrownfoods.com. hk) launched a direct-to-customer distribution channel to support its goal of 'increasing the consumption of locally produced premium clean foods', which, according to the company's founder, Todd Darling, means 'foods grown without harmful pesticides or chemical fertilisers'.
Homegrown Foods gets its products from professionally managed family farms on the mainland and in Hong Kong. Such farms must not use synthetic pesticides, fertilisers made with sewage sludge, bioengineering or ionising radiation.
Customers buy up to eight varieties of vegetable, for weekly deliveries. A five-week trial package costs HK$1,420 for small boxes and HK$2,840 for large ones. The vegetables are delivered within 24 hours of being harvested, a time frame that ensures the food arrives with a minimal decline in nutritional values - imported conventionally farmed vegetables have 'five to 40 per cent less minerals, vitamins and antioxidants', according to Homegrown Foods.
Darling concedes the food he sells is 'not cheap' but he defends the high prices by saying 'every dollar you spend goes to producing the food that's on your plate'.
Customers with the trial package pay a separate HK$200 participation fee, which is reinvested in seedlings and research and development.
'We wanted to create a business that helped improve our community but that was also commercially viable,' Darling says. 'And also produce food in a way that's beneficial to the land and the people who produce it. We want to give farmers the ability to earn more money than what their conventional counterparts are earning.'
