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| Zhang Zhimin. (Photo: Global Times /Liang Chen ) |
BEIJING, July 28 (Xinhuanet) --A black car screeched to a halt at a red gate in suburban Liangxiang, Beijing's Fangshan district.
A middle-aged sales manager from a Beijing supermarket jumped out and rushed into an organic vegetable field to greet Zhang Zhimin, the owner of God's Grace Garden Plantation, also known as Tianfuyan in Chinese.
Zhang, working in a plain blue T-shirt, was crouched down sowing seeds in her vegetable garden.
"We want to cooperate with you," the man introduced himself. "You can provide us organic agriculture products from your plantation and share the profit with us, and then we will use your 'Tianfuyuan' brand."
Zhang stopped her work, stood up and shook her head for a second. "No," she replied sweetly but firmly.
It was not the first time that a Beijing supermarket has sought a business partnership with Zhang. Several grocery chains have tried to capitalize on her reputation for producing naturally grown fruits and vegetables that look as delicious as they taste.
As usual, she turned down the offer.
"Organic farming exists at the mercy of the elements. How can I tame nature to satisfy the market," Zhang bluntly told the grocery executive.
Naturally, big food market owners are pleased to see the organic food industry expand, and they want to share in the cornucopia of profits. But Zhang said that she is "in no rush to expand my business."
"Besides, I'm selling conscience, not goods," she said, after the man left the field.
"I'm kind of worried that they may buy chemically grown food from other markets and sell it under my brand, which could ruin my reputation."
Doubts continue
Zhang's worries over false organic labeling in supermarkets are justified, considering what is happening at some big organic outlets. Yongshunhua, a large-scale organic vegetable supplier in Beijing, sells its vegetables in many giant supermarkets, like Ito Yokado, WuMart, Lotus Supercenter and others. Suspicions arose last week when the company's vegetables appeared on the shelves with no "organic food" label on the packaging, and prices have been lowered by 20 to 30 percent in recent days.
"Is there something wrong with the company? Did the company fail to get any authentication this year? " Sun Wen, a sales manager from a real estate company and a long-time customer of Yongshunhua, asked Beijing Youth Daily.
A manager from the company, surnamed Tao, replied, "Our authentication expired in May of this year, and our new application hasn't been approved yet."
Tao did not specify the reasons for the delayed certification, but when interviewed by a Global Times reporter, she insisted that products from her company are safe to eat.
Actually, people have been suspicious of "organic food" labels for a long time.
A middle-aged sales representative surnamed Zhao said she has never purchased organic vegetables from the supermarket, even though her own brand of organic mushrooms can be found on the shelves at Carrefour in Tongzhou district of Beijing.
"There are at least five different 'organic food' brands at Carrefour, and how could I know which ones are good or not," L Yueqin, a 52-year-old housewife in Qingdao, Shandong Province, told the Global Times.
Idyllic life
Zhang is protective of her brand for a good reason having labored as an organic farmer for almost a decade to create her idyllic "World of Pandora" and build a reputation for growing healthy food.
The 100,000-square-meter plantation uses no chemical fertilizers or toxic pesticides. She grows hybrid species and uses organic plowing techniques to keep nutrients locked into the soil and maintain biodiversity.
Her farm was once barren land choked with weeds. But Zhang changed everything. Now, the place is surrounded by trees five-story high. Under the trees, chickens, cows, lambs, rabbits and other barnyard animals graze freely back and forth. Mouth-watering apricots, cherries, and peaches are ripe in the orchard, beckoning a Global Times reporter when the fresh fruit drops from tree limbs and plops to the ground with muted thumps. Juicy red tomatoes, green and lush celery and sponge cucumbers are in season now.
Strolling in her farm, Zhang said, "I believe farming is my life. I hate to talk about business." A German Shepherd named Xiaopang and two small dogs played around Zhang's ankles.
You see her at work in the field and you can barely imagine Zhang as the successful businesswoman she was 10 years ago before she traded her exquisite suits and high-heeled shoes for farm boots and dungarees.
Back then, she was an international agricultural products dealer in a State-owned import-export company, signing foreign contracts worth $30 million a year for the import and export of agriculture products and setting a sales record for her company.
Nowadays, with little interest in expanding her business, Zhang's farm is an organic food cooperative with about 100 members.
Though the plantation may appear idyllic to occasional visitors from the city, running an organic farm is a diffi-cult business. Typically, Zhang invested a couple of million yuan to develop her farm over 10 years but made no money off the land for the first seven years.
Ji Yongliang, owner of Beijing Derunwu Organic Farm that grows vegetables only, said, "We're a group of people living at the mercy of the elements. Natural disasters, such as storms, pests, floods, can easily beat us." Ji himself has gone bankrupt in organic farming three times in six years.
There are exceptions. Some large-scale organic plantations, such as Xiaomaol and Qingpuyuan, receive subsidies from government agencies.
'Organic' deceptions
Frightened by the overuse of chemical pesticides, more and more middle-class families in China prefer organic food. A Greenpeace survey in Beijing showed that 80 percent of consumers interviewed said they prefer to buy organic food. Usually, they buy organic produce at the supermarket.
In supermarkets, prices for food labeled "organic" are usually seven to ten times higher than the prices for non-organic brands. Organic broccoli, for example, sells for 32 yuan per kilo in Beijing, but ordinary broccoli costs only 5 yuan per kilo. Direct sales from organic farms are a little bit cheaper. The same kilo of organic broccoli costs about 20 yuan when delivered fresh from the farm to the kitchen table.
Although organic food is much more expensive than non-organic, the market is in disarray.
Market chaos
At Ito Yokado, WuMart, Jingkelong and other supermarkets, a Global Times reporter recently counted at least a dozen different seals of approval for organic food. Sometimes the brands were tagged with two or three different certifications. Authentication by OFCC is the most commonly seen certificate in Beijing's supermarkets.
Besides, some "organic food" producers are selling their fruits and vegetables at the same price of regular food items. The labels simply read, "Xiaotangshan organic food" or, "Yanhe organic food" with no detailed information or contact numbers on the packaging.
This disorderly market has confused customers. Among 20 customers surveyed by the Global Times at a Carrefour market in Tongzhou, 16 said they are skeptical of organic food labels.
Taste test
"Since organic food tastes no different than regular food, how would I know whether the food is really organic," Wang Haizhen, a sales manager at a real estate company, told the Global Times. Wang began buying organic groceries two years ago and says she spends more than 200 yuan ($30) a week on organic fruits and vegetables for her family of four.
Wang said she stopped buying organic food from supermarkets about a year ago, and now buys directly from a private organic farm with official authentication. Other people buy from small organic farms without official seals of approval.
For example, Derunwu Organic Food Company has no organic certification. "We don't need any authentication certificates. More than one thousand customers have each given us their approval, " said owner Ji Yunliang.
Uncertainty over organic food labeling breeds mistrust by experts as well. "Now that the organic food market in China has taken off, it lacks a sound supervision and authentication system," said Zhang Yinghui, a freelancer who writes about organic products and green living in Beijing.
Zhang notes that, "There is no compulsory law on regulation of the organic market, which makes it much more difficult for customers to distinguish between the true and the false."
