Think of “Food” and “Asia” and what comes to mind is a rich and diverse mosaic of landscapes and sentiments: on the one hand, we can imagine golden fields of rice tended by tight-knit communities, abundant harvests at year-end festivals, and sprawling, animated markets; however, we also have unsavory images of grain rotting in the heat, poverty-stricken and hungry children, and food riots in urban centers.

Rice, wheat, vegetables, fruits, corns, and pulses, are important not only as nourishment for the people of Asia but, more importantly, as livelihood. Asia accounts for over 80% of the world’s agricultural workforce, amounting to almost one billion people concentrated in the food exporting countries of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Given this dual importance of food in the Asian context, food security has become one of the topmost priorities for the region.

One man’s meat

The prospects of food for Asia are mixed. The region has seen a remarkable boost in agricultural output since the 1960s.

Between 1980 and 2000, production per hectare generally rose – in China by 60%. Increased income also meant that people could buy better quality food. In Asia, from 1996 to 2006, overall meat production rose by 40%.

Yet in spite of the rise in farm output and employment, and the rapid development in food production and storage technologies, Asia still has a large hungry population. The most reliable statistics indicate that 16% of the region’s total population of 542 million people, are suffering from malnutrition. More than half of the world’s underweight children live in Asia.

Ironically, Asia’s hungry are our agricultural workers who spend up to 70% of their total income on food. With food prices rising 51% first half of 2008 compared to 2007, and commodity markets increasingly volatile, next year could be ‘another dangerous year for food prices in poor countries’.

Is it possible the region to develop alternative, sustainable and equitable food systems? What opportunities and possibilities can social entrepreneurship bring to address this complex and critical situation?

Sowing organic, reaping well

One of the pioneers in sustainable agricultural production is a two-year old organic rice farm in one of the poorest provinces of Thailand. Co-founded by Mr. Bryan Hugill and Ms. Lalana Srikram, Raitong (“Golden Land”) Organics Farm has evolved from the Srikram-Kewandee family farm that has cultivated top-grade Hom Mali rice under rain-fed conditions since settling in the Sisaket province some 200 years ago.

Environmental sustainability and education are two of the main motivations for Bryan and Lalana to choose the organic path. In essence, this is a production method that uses natural, rather than chemical, methods to enrich the soil and is characterized by “polyculture”, the cultivation of different crops together in the field, as opposed to “monoculture” – concentrating on one or two crops. Says Lalana, “Organic production improves the quality of the soil as it improves the soil structure over time. Polyculture and the use of appropriate microbes and bacteria encourages carbon-storage and the fixing of nutrients  in the soil, ensuring a healthy and high quality rice crop.”

Cultivating 25 rai (approximately 10 acres) of Hom Mali rice, Raitong Organics is the first certified organic farm in the Sisaket province, with international accreditation from the Organic Agriculture Certification Thailand (ACT) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).

“In contrast to popular belief, small farms are more productive than large ones,” Bryan explains, “Farmers know their land much better and spend more time on their land, leading to better management.”

Indeed, Bryan and Lalana’s success with their small farm – producing some 11 tonnes of rice per year with saved seed – has inspired other farmers in the community. Despite being initially resistant in the first year, farmers were much more receptive to organic farming methods after comparing their crop with that grown organically, which looked much healthier at the end of the growing season. Healthy and delicious rice – potentially a niche product for the region, has also sparked  the interest of local provincial authorities. The Land Development Authority is now offering agricultural extension to promote organic certification, offering such services as ploughing farmer’s land for free and providing beans for farmers to grow nitrogen-fixing legumes.

One of the missions of Raitong is to enhance the awareness of the benefits of organic agriculture to local farmers and, when requested, assist them in implementing the necessary change. Bryan and Lalana firmly believe that organic farming represents a powerful way to spread income through the community in a sustainable way because, as a growing niche market, an increased supply of organic crop will create greater market opportunities for the entire community.

Raitong Organics is currently supplying a restaurant in Bangkok directly, bypassing exploitative middlemen and market structures. “Selling directly to food services establishes a direct connection between farmers and consumers,” Bryan explains, “This raises consumer awareness of organic food production, facilitates direct and immediate feedback, builds consumer trust and enables both parties to enjoy a fair price.” What system could be better?

“We hope that organic food production will snowball in the years to come, as more farmers learn about the benefits of, and consumers create demand for, healthy organic food, thus creating a greater market.” Bryan asserts, “We just have to keep demonstrating.”

Organic farming represents one of ways the food system can be changed at its source. Through promoting and facilitating the development of sustainable production methods and the direct distribution of farmed food to urban populations, social enterprises such as Raitong Organics Farm shows that an ethical alternative is possible.

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For more information on Raitong Organics Farm, do visit: http://www.raitongorganicsfarm.com/

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Mr  K K Tse, Chair of the Hong Kong Social Entrepreneurship Forum,  was in Singapore to  attend the inaugural Social iCon 2009; a one-day conference organized by the Lien Centre for Social Innovation at the Singapore Management University.

SEforum: Are there any personal observations you would like to share while you were here in Singapore?

I enjoyed the Social icon event very much and learnt a lot from the speakers as well as the organizers. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are relative newcomers to the field. It has only been 4 to 5 years since the terms social enterprise and social entrepreneurship have come into public awareness and attention.

But I couldn’t help feeling that in Singapore, you allow the government to do too much. I said ‘you allow’, because you could change this state of affairs. Nowhere in the world does the government create success in social entrepreneurship. Only social entrepreneurs will. Frankly, in Singapore the entrepreneurial spirit is very, very low. This is true for business entrepreneurship and even more so for social entrepreneurship. This is an area where Singapore needs a major breakthrough otherwise it is hard for social enterprise to flourish.

By far the most important difference is the environment for entrepreneurship. Hong Kong is often known as a city of entrepreneurs, albeit business entrepreneurs. In Singapore, by contrast, the best and brightest would not aspire to become an entrepreneur; they prefer to work for the government or the multi-national corporations. As a leading businessman has recently put it, “We need to emphasize the need for entrepreneurs in Singapore, simply because everybody is so ingrained against it. If we say to every Singaporean that you must be entrepreneurs, maybe two percent of graduates will be entrepreneurs. But, if you do not say it, there will be none.” (Ho Kwon Ping, Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Singapore Management University, quoted in Social Space, 2009, Issue 2, p.15)

Generally speaking, setting up a social enterprise is more difficult than setting up a business enterprise. In Singapore, therefore, becoming a social entrepreneur is far more challenging than doing so in Hong Kong. Currently, most social enterprises in Singapore receive government funding support (just like the situation in Hong Kong), but Hong Kong boasts a greater number of social enterprises that can flourish without any government funding support. Examples such as Senior Citizens Home Safety Association, Fullness Social Enterprise, Ventures in Development, Dialogue in the Dark HK Ltd., to name a few.

SEforum: What do you see are the pressing challenges for SE in the region in the next 3 years?

1.  Creating a Social Capital Market

Although our two cities pride themselves as being a world-class financial centre, it is curious, almost grotesque, to observe that there is virtually no capital market for social enterprises. There are so many funding sources available to be tapped that we have only ourselves to blame if we could not devise and develop suitable mechanisms to channel the funds to productive investment in social businesses. We need a major breakthrough in this area in the near future.

2.  Making More Creative Use of Government Funding and Policy Support

Although we firmly believe that social entrepreneurship is primarily a citizen sector initiative, it does not mean that we cannot leverage public sector funding and policy support to advance our cause. Indeed, it is our duty to make good and creative use of whatever the government could do in terms of providing funding and various forms of policy support. Up to this moment, the government has provided ‘seed money’ for NGO-sponsored social enterprises but with very mixed results.  There is no doubt that citizen sector needs to take the lead in the social entrepreneurship space. For example, after the first Social Enterprise Summit organized by the HKSAR government in 2007, a number of civil society organizations felt that the Summit could achieve far better results when it is organized by the citizen’s sector. Which is why this upcoming SE summit in HK is championed by NGOs!

3.  Engaging Young People as Leaders of Positive Social Change

Young people have become a ‘lost generation’. But tomorrow’s world will be shaped and owned by today’s youth. No society can afford not to invest substantially on preparing young people to take control of their destiny. Having worked with thousands of social entrepreneurs worldwide, Ashoka came to realize the importance of encouraging, supporting and empowering young people to be changemakers early in their lives. Ten years ago, Ashoka started to launch a new program known as Youth Venture. The basic idea is very simple and powerful: the society-wide redefinition of youth years as a time of leadership and positive social initiative, thus equipping them with the skills and empathy to be changemakers throughout their lives. Hong Kong needs our own version of Youth Venture and we need it fast.

SEforum: Please share with us your vision for Social Entrepreneurship

‘Every Business a Social Business’

The inspiration of this idea comes from Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank.

My personal career is a perfect example. I worked for a long time as a salaried employee for a typical profit-maximizing enterprise. Everyone in the organization from the boss downwards was schooled to think single-mindedly of profit maximization. No one was supposed to do otherwise. In the end, everyone’s energy, creativity, talents were focused exclusively on maximizing profits. If a person had any other interests or concerns, one could only pursue them outside office hours in one’s spare time. This became the case for one’s entire career and and is thought to be natural in a capitalistic economy.

Looking back, I regret having ‘wasted’ so much of my youth and prime time in doing nothing but profit maximization. If this happens to me alone, it is a personal tragedy. But when everyone working in a corporation shares the same fate, it is a human tragedy on a grand scale.

Yunus envisions a day when there will no longer be any distinctions between a business enterprise and a social enterprise, and all businesses will become social businesses. In his ‘solution’, the driving force for this new future will be a new type of entrepreneurs, what he calls social business entrepreneurs. It is a bold future and an inspiring one for all of us to join hands to bring about.

It will of course take decades to realize this vision. But things are changing and can change very fast indeed. The accelerated growth of social entrepreneurship is and will be a major force to demonstrate the viability and desirability of this ultimate goal.

Related posts:

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Recycling pays

Shoes, books, bags and clothes. These are common things people desire and what they spend on in malls. And they are also among the things Teng Hou Teck finds abandoned outside of lifts, at the alleys behind shophouses, beside trashbins, down by the corridors… And just about everywhere.

But while most see these abandoned goods as trash, 78-year-old Mr Teng sees the answer to his daily meals.

Mr Teng goes around with his push-cart and relies on his keen sense to pick-out tin cans, drink cans, large cardboard boxes, newspaper and other discarded items. He collects and sells them to recycling companies or middlemen who would then transport them to recycling centres.

Environmental friendly habits aside, recycling has an upside: it is livelihood.

Mr Teng turns 80 in just two years. He used to work in a convenience shop in Bedok but became “too old” to be employed though he is still relatively fit. He does not have any children to support him.

“This job is not illegal and it feeds me,” said Mr Teng in mandarin. “Besides, there is nothing else to do.”

Said Mr Teng: “Rather than beg and borrow from friends and relatives, I rather keep my pride and work hard as a karang guni man.”

He wakes up at the wee hours of 4am to collect the first round of rubbish with a supermarket trolley, takes a simple breakfast of bread with butter and sugar at 8am, and sifts through his morning finds. One reason for him going through his finds is that he may just “hit a jackpot” like finding some cash left in the trash by accident.

“There are so many things that are worth more than they look,” said Mr Teng. When he collects enough discarded books, he sells them to second hand book stores.

More importantly, the reason why Mr Teng sorts out his finds is that Thomas, the middleman, whom Mr Teng sells the bulk of his finds to, requires him to do so.

After picking out the occasional item he can sell or re-use, Mr Teng then moves on to sending the rest for recycling. The skinny old man then pushes his heavy pile of finds in a supermarket trolley to the carpark by the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple at Chinatown.

“Yes it is heavy, but the heavier it is the happier I am,” said Mr Teng. How much he earns depends on the weight of his finds for the day. For example, a kilogram of paper or cardboard is worth 10 cents.

Although there are higher margins from reselling books or even cardboard boxes, Mr Teng explained that it is not often that they stumble upon these better deals. Hence, he is grateful to middlemen like Thomas who buy the recyclables from him before transporting them to the recycling centre, something which he is unable to do with just a trolley.

Making ends meet

At the carpark where Thomas and his lorry is parked daily at 8am, great piles of recyclables are stacked up. There, you can find an expensive Harrods biscuit tin lying nonchalantly beside a Khong Guan biscuit tin amidst a pile of other metal scraps.

In Singapore, hundreds of elderly eke out a living seeking thrown out items that can be recycled. Some of them hawk around and collect cans from coffeeshop. Other more entrepreneurial ones like Mr Teng have agreements with shops for their trash.

Like Mr Teng, when they think they have collected enough, these elderly karung guni’s then bring their pile over to Thomas.

As Mr Teng eagerly emptied his stash onto the single green metallic weighing machine. He held his breath as the scale tells his earnings for the day’s work. Dinner depends on this.

Thomas is one of the three groups of middleman recycler situated in Chinatown. Like the rest, he is an informal recycler. He further sorts out trash from what he collects from the elderly and saves them from an unnecessarily short lifespan by transporting them for recycling.

“When I look at garbage, I don’t just see garbage. I see them as paper, plastic, glass, metal and whatever other materials that are usually recycled,” said Thomas in Mandarin. “It’s a game of luck too. You earn more if you get more valuable recyclables like metals and electronics products as compared to paper and plastic. Sometimes, things are rejected too.”

Indeed, ten minutes later, a couple of wet cardboard boxes got rejected from Mr Teng’s pile. Minus that, his tall pile earned him a good $10 today.

According to Thomas who started out five years ago, each elderly earn about $8 on average and $15 on a single good day, for every trolley they bring. They are given 10cents per kilograms for paper products, which is usually the bulk of what is retrieved. For the other materials such as electronics, it depends on how much valuable components it holds.

“We really don’t earn much but there is a certain sense of satisfaction for providing that little income for the elderly although they make up only about 40% of our collection,” said Thomas, who collected recyclables from companies who are moving or renovating as well.

But he added that “we are essentially still a business though I do try to help here and there.”

For example, when Thomas heard one of his regular customer was put into a home where he found himself bored and trapped, he pulled some strings and connections to get him out. Thomas then took him in and currently provides meals and a little pocket money for him in return for help sorting out the recyclables in the day.

Nonetheless, he maintains that he is definitely not a charity. A few years back, he held annual buffets to reward the elderly who sell their recyclables to him. But he has since stopped doing so as he realised they are a pragmatic lot. They flocked to the other companies once they offer better prices for their recyclables.

Competition is stiff; two other middlemen companies gather in the evening to collect recyclables. Some like Ms Chye run registered companies by day and would only go to Chinatown in the evenings.

“It is really a lot of work to sort out the recyclables and it has to be manual in case some things like a metal binder holding a bunch of paper gets into the paper pile. It may spoil machines during recycling,” said Ms Chye. “So much work and the profit margin is getting slimmer with the bad economy.”

It used to be better, she explained, when the samsui women were here earlier and provided much more business for them. Now, with the prices of the recyclables fallen alongside the economy, middlemen like herself earn nominally and go unrecognised despite having positive social and environment impacts.

Such collection sites are important social nodes

For example, St James Settlement, a registered charity, in Hong Kong, stations their social workers at such collection points to find out more about the elderly who sell their recyclables there and their needs.

Josephine Lee Senior Manager of St Jame’s Settlement in Hong Kong said: “One or two of our social workers visit these collection points regularly. We make friends with the elderly, who are very independent, and we respect their independence. Sometimes we see a tear in one of the lady’s seot saam (Cantonese for blouse) , and we ask her to take the extra seot saam that we brought along by chance. Other times we notice that someone is missing from the collection point and we would ask around about his whereabouts. Sometimes they are sick and need medical attention.”

That’s when social nodes such as these collection sites form efficient means of social service delivery.

According to a New York Times report, middleman recyclers handle as much as 20 per cent of waste in some parts of the world. Yet their efforts go largely unrecognised and do not enjoy the benefits of the formal economy such as insurance and pension benefits.

Filling a gap

Nonetheless, middleman recyclers like Thomas and Ms Chye form part of a vibrant informal economy that provides a viable source of income for the elderly who otherwise may not find employment. They bridge an important gap and their collection routine form important social nodes for reaching out to at-risk groups of elderly.

In Singapore, according to the National Environment Agency’s statistics in 2009, about 50% of our solid waste gets recycled. This means that 50% of our trash may become part of Mr Teng’s barter. These discarded goods go through a series of recycling processes before finding a new home and a new lease of life.

And meanwhile, the recycling allows Mr Teng to keep his way of life too.

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