Leading aboriginal communities to breakthrough marketing bottlenecks under the pandemic
The AFA explains that the Association of Taiwanese Indigenous People’s Development (ATIPD), Manna Organic Life Association, and Taiwanway Social Enterprise are the main eco-friendly promotion groups providing counseling to aboriginal farmers. They are highly involved in introducing products with distinct aboriginal characteristics to the public. Of them, ATIPD was approved as an eco-friendly farming group in 2017 and has since been working to help aboriginal communities adopt eco-friendly practices to cultivate aboriginal specialty crops. Covid-19 has prevented people from interacting with one another and disrupted the original consumption pattern. Home cooking has thus taken over and replaced outeating. To fulfill that newly emerged demand, ATIPD collaborated with the e-commerce and tribal collective marketing platform “Tribal E-shop” to gather individual aboriginal farmers to roll out organic and eco-friendly vegetable boxes. Their offering featured aboriginal specialties and freshly harvested vegetables, which helped them distinguish themselves from the rest of the market. Those vegetable boxes became an instant hit and accumulated impressive sales numbers, which played a huge role in providing income and helping farmers weather the storm of the pandemic.
Association of Taiwanese Indigenous People’s Development Chief Secretary Ms. Huei-wen Chin says that the e-platform was overwhelmed by orders during the Level 3 Pandemic Alert last year. Back then, produce was sold at a premium, and farmers were reluctant to release their crops. Making things worse, the chilled delivery service was also clogged with excessive orders. But determined to serve customers, the Association worked closely with small farmers to select and pick fruits and vegetables and reached out to night market vendors that were closed due to the pandemic to utilize their logistics facilities. Those efforts successfully delivered fresh produce to consumers and established a new business model for conquering pandemic obstacles.
Encourage consumers to take action in support of organic/eco-friendly agricultural products and the land on which they are grown
The AFA indicates that to incentivize farmers’ participation in eco-friendly activities, those who register to participate in eco-friendly or obtain organic certification are eligible for a yearly NTD30,000/hectare (up to three years for eco-friendly practice on each piece of land) environmental reward, subsidies on the purchase of production equipment and machinery, and other supports. Eco-friendly farming groups are also assisted to adopt more diverse marketing approaches and training on farming methods to help their farmers make the transformation. We hereby call on consumers to select organic and eco-friendly agricultural products and contribute their part to benefitting the environment and leave a better Taiwan to the next generation.
