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Comment by Carey Ma on March 11, 2014 at 4:34am

Hi again Atreyu, I'd be glad to help. I'll contact you via e-mail and see what we can come up with.

Cheers

Comment by Atreyu M on March 10, 2014 at 8:59am

I also did live in Beijing for two years. I must say, with only little knowing about your work and achievements I just consider myself a big admirer of your talent and work and achievements!! 

I would love to become an Ecolonomists myself too. Please,  I would very much appreciate you to consider contacting me for some guidance/help/collaboration... in how to establish a facility/farm using integrated bio systems, AKA in an urban/ peri-urban environment for the production of food. In Spain. I hope it could sound good for you too! j.manjon.j@gmail.com

All the best! 

Comment by Carey Ma on January 26, 2012 at 7:21pm

@ Bill M: That sounds like a great read. Would you mind donating it to me after you finish reading it?

@ Ellen: I'm happy to say that for now, Ag industry here is tax free, otherwise I'd have you bite the taxman. hehe

Comment by Bill Moore on January 26, 2012 at 8:07am

Carey..  You might give some consideration to a employee ownership model, something akin to the Mondragon cooperative in Spain.  Check out that and the work of Gar Alperowitz.  I am reading 'America Beyond Capitalism' right now (http://www.garalperovitz.com/abc/). 

Comment by Ellen Roelofs on January 26, 2012 at 7:17am

What are you doing with alligator(s)? He's sitting in a pretty good seat, man, I tell ya, I'd eat your chickens and ducks and bite anyone you want!  

Comment by Carey Ma on January 25, 2012 at 10:12am

Well Matt that can be forty-five yuan for a cocktail, six to eight hundred a bottle or two yuan for a big bottle of beer at the corner store.

I like intelligent conversation: Three factors have to be balanced and stable for it to be sustainable. There is of course the ecological factor. Then there is the economic factor. The third factor is the social factor. It is to this end that I am addressing.

First off as you may well recall, life here, in general, sucks big gahonnas! I would be providing world-class education and equal opportunity for advancement in a new industry model that is easily transferable back to their home villages; meaning they can make better living at home and spread the technology. I know I’m not there yet and I might be self-deluded but I think there are people who would be glad to pay to have the opportunity to work on my farm/s let alone get paid. 

In order for me to be a purist and not be tempted to sell out to big Ag and still have control over research and expansion, I plan to turn my company into an independent, financially sustaining, institute of research for the betterment of mankind. To do this I have to attract quality people. As we still live in the clenches of capitalism, I have to be able to offer a more and or better lifestyle. These community members will socially enjoy all the benefits the community has to offer along with a more than equal salary compared to their counterparts. Whether community members choose to advance in rank or stay at their comfort level, the more seniority one has the more they get paid. So a janitor that puts in twenty loyal years gets to park his Benze in one of the Exec VPs spaces. I want to build for stability, loyalty and longevity.

Me and mine can only spend so much and everything I do/ spend is written off, so mute point there. I only expect a modest salary to compensate for the twenty years I spent on one campus or another and doing mostly self-financed experiments for thirty. I see financial reward as a byproduct of a successful project; products of fortitude, good planning and execution.

I was in the research stage and just completed development of my initial model. Now I am finally ready to tackle another set of slippery slopes and hoop in the hopes of scaling up into profitability and expandability via franchise duplication; eventually as globally adopted practice (hopefully). 

PS I hope you weren't suggesting that I would treat my livestock better than my other vested interest? hehe

Comment by matthew ferrell on January 25, 2012 at 6:59am

Yeah I remember how easy it was to spend rmbs last time I was there.  Depending on what activity we found ourselves in we could spend 100 or 1500 in the blink of an eye.  I spent much money in the country side even though we spent a bulk of our time there, so I really don't know how that market compares to the cities.

I'd like to argue your point though, for fun.  If you plan to clear 2-3 million and are not greedy, then how is it fair that your laborers, will have to live humble lives so that you can have a super lavish one?  FYI, I know what those "modest" accommodations look like.  One farm worker we met had to sleep on the shrimp feed because his 8 x 10 foot "house" couldn't fit him and his farm supplies.  If this model is really so profitable, you could bring a change in conditions for a huge group of people, and still take home a pay check that you could be very proud of.  Profit is not a bad thing, but just remember how its made.

Comment by Carey Ma on January 25, 2012 at 1:54am

Average farm labor is @ eight to twelve yuan an hour or fifteen hundred plus one meal per four hours is customary or two thousand a month. Modest accommodations will be offered to those not from nearby villages. I plan to pay according to ability with bonus according to the success rate of their charge. Those that graduate a two year intern may opt to work in their field or study another facet at double their starting pay. Those that float to management will have the ability to profit share. A full 40% of income can be reinvested in the staff. This is planned to attract young people back out to the countryside. Why work in the city when one can make as much or more , close to home?

Ten thousand is a lot or not much depending on whether or not one has ten thousand. Ten thousand can go a decent way if one is cautious and humble. That's what I call Chinese welfare. Then again ten thousand can be blown on one person's evening entertainment, within the blink of an eye.  The average service person makes six hundred to two thousand while lower level professionals makes two thousand to five thousand a month. I was paid close to five thousand a month plus room and board, teaching at the Ag U. So ten thousand would feed a peasant family of four provided they eat on the lean side, but this is expected as supplementary income, kind of like our food stamps.

Comment by matthew ferrell on January 24, 2012 at 6:00am

Are you going to pay you farmers more than the average wage?  I know that 10,000rmb is not a lot.  China goods are not as cheap as many Americans think. 

Comment by Carey Ma on January 23, 2012 at 10:33am

@ Matthew

Unlike current models of factory farming where the cheapest inputs are bought, converted to facsimile of food and are then sold. This method uses waste from the top trophic tier to feed the next. So one input feeds the down-line through more of the food web. ie the byproduct of growing wonderful vegetables is used as feed, say rabbits and chicken, there is little cost other than labor esp. if the feed is just supplemental being free-range and all.

Now, I have a bunch of low cost chicken and rabbits that I can either eat, sell or use to feed the next trophic level, I choose to raise alligators that have a three to one conversion ratio but sell at five times the price of chicken and seven to ten times the price of rabbit, I already win, esp. considering that the chicken being fed are the undesirables that need to be culled anyway and may be not worth or able to be sold at market. Then there is the pelt (leather) that really tops the financial scale in favor of the farmer.

Yes it is much more "expensive" to run an operation like mine compared to commercial feed lots but luckily I'm in Beijing where labor cost are reasonable and demand for "clean" and "natural" or "slow foods" foods command up to three times the market price of "organic" grown. i.e. factory farm (feedlot) eggs sell for five yuan per pound, while "free-range" eggs sell for ten to fifteen yuan a pound. I can sell my eggs at twenty to thirty yuan per pound with demand far outreaching supply. My cost for eggs this past year was less than four yuan per pound leaving me fifteen yuan profit per pound. If need be, I can even compete directly with so called organic and still be profitable.

This cost includes processing, storage, labor and interest. As a CSA I don't have transportation cost. Chicken meat cost me about the same. Now instead of discarding the processed chickens as waste, it can be fed to the alligators for an even higher profit margin. So the alligators are essentially pure profit. 

The down side is that the farmer can only raise a small number of these compared to feedlots or monoculture operations. Another down side is that there is a lot more management, planning and labor involved.

So to conclude, in a feedlot operation you have the cost of hi-tech building, land, labor and feed with an output of whatever crop and waste that becomes a major cost to properly dispose of or a major ecological liability (pollution); (same as current models of aquaculture).

While in my system, my farmer gets to sell an abundance and variety of crops with little input other than labor.

It is the same principle as Ap (aquaponics), just more efficient usage of the waste/ nutrient stream. Why raise fish alone when you can get fish and veggies?

The average farmer here earns about ten thousand yuan a year per acre growing wheat and corn, before expenses. I fed four people full time (minus grains) and two more people part time and still made an income of thirteen thousand yuan after expenses. With fifty acres, I expect to hire one hundred and fifty people and expect an income of around two to three million after expenses. I’m sure a feedlot can make a lot more money on fifty acres than a mere two mill. but I’m not greedy. I am, satisfied that I am rewarded with a good living and everything I steward is healthy and happy including land crops and customers. What more can a food producer wish for?

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