China's Best-Kept Food Secret; Organic Farms Selling Only To Political, Business Elites

[hatrack]

At a glance, it is clear this is no run-of-the-mill farm: A 6-foot spiked fence hems the meticulously planted vegetables and security guards control a cantilevered gate that glides open only to select cars. "It is for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don't sell to the public," said Li Xiuqin, 68, a lifelong Shunyi village resident who lives directly across the street from the farm but has never been inside. "Ordinary people can't go in there."

Until May, a sign inside the gate identified the property as the Beijing Customs Administration Vegetable Base and Country Club. The placard was removed after a Chinese reporter sneaked inside and published a story about the farm producing organic food so clean the cucumbers could be eaten directly from the vine.

Elsewhere in the world, this might be something to boast about. Not in China. Organic gardening here is a hush-hush affair in which the cleanest, safest products are largely channeled to the rich and politically connected.

Many of the nation's best food companies don't promote or advertise. They don't want the public to know that their limited supply is sent to Communist Party officials, dining halls reserved for top athletes, foreign diplomats, and others in the elite classes. The general public, meanwhile, dines on foods that are increasingly tainted or less than healthful — meats laced with steroids, fish from ponds spiked with hormones to increase growth, milk containing dangerous additives such as melamine, which allows watered-down milk to pass protein-content tests.

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-elite-farm-20110917,0,7521747,full.story

[cprise]

1. About the milk scandal...

Don't the Chinese generally avoid dairy products?

[AlecBGreen]

2. Until recently, yes

Milk is now ubiquitous in Chinese grocery stores. 20 years ago you would have been hard-pressed to find any. Cheese and butter haven't caught on, but the best yogurt of my life came from a youth hostel in Yunnan province. Soooooo goooood.... :drool:

[diane in sf]

3. Reminds me of Ronnie Rayguns eating organic beef from his ranch while trying to lower

US standards to allow hormone infested beef to be sold to the public and forcibly exported to places who didn't want it