Team DOrganic Swirl

Team Instructor / Tingyi S. Lin (Taiwan)

Facilitator / Andy Tsui (Taiwan)

Team members / ByungSoo Kim (Korea)Chin Hua Lin (Taiwan)Hsiang Wen Shih (Taiwan)Ine Mols (Netherlands)Lata Sankaran (Singapore)

Final Projects 9594 Asian Smart Living International School Report. 2014 9594

　Design Target PositioningIn order to overcome the challenges the Xingjian Organic Dream Farm encounters, the design team initially proposed three development directions: "leisure agriculture management," "membership marketing," and "organic education," among which "organic education" is served as the core development concept. "Leisure agriculture management" emphasizes the expansion of the Farm’s current agricultural experience courses, such as holding cooking classes with schools, chefs and other experts, creating a straw packing experience, and providing bicycle tour packages. “Membership marketing” contains members-only lunch boxes, seasonal vegetable and fruit packages, and members-only carnival events. “Organic education” includes providing seed pouches, offering organic farming apprenticeships, and helping farmers with the acquisition of organic certification. Finally, two clear design goals were proposed for "organic education": 1) to encourage people to know more about organic planting and increase their willingness to purchase organic products; 2) to gradually introduce people to lead an organic lifestyle.

Figure 48 Rice green onion pancakes

8　Background ExplorationAfter interviewing the owner of the Xingjian Organic Dream Farm, the design team discovered numerous resources, including farmland experience activities, knowledge of organic farming, and a central field of a cooperative center. In addition, the Xingjian Organic Dream Farm's promotion of organic farming is not only educational, but also helpful in developing leisure agriculture and promoting membership marketing. However, organic farming also faces many difficulties, such as cultivation obstacles, the complicated application process for organic certification, learning barriers of new farmers, and the increasing financial needs to sustain the operation.

Figure 49 The Xingjian Organic Dream Farm

Final Projects 9796 Asian Smart Living International School Report. 2014 9796

　Design DetailsThe design team proposed a progressive organic promotion system for the design goals named "Organic Swirl." It is hoped that, through the system, consumers of both organic produce and non-organic produce can be attracted; via different stages of designed activities, they can be guided to gradually lead an organic lifestyle. In addition, according to the operation mode of the system, it can also help the Xingjian Organic Dream Farm to have more stable revenue to support the sustainable development of organic farming.

Overall, the Organic Swirl concept includes six stages. In the first stage, consumers can buy seeds from the Xingjian Organic Dream Farm and start trying organic planting at home. In the second stage, consumers gradually create a small organic farm in their own yards and develop an interest in farming. In the third stage, when consumers are more interested in farming because of their home garden organic farming experiences, they

can get further involved with larger-scale organic farms in the community, and adopt more land for planting. In the fourth stage, consumers can participate in the "Organic Farming Summer Camp" and learn more techniques for organic farming, to develop their abilities and become professional farmers. After building this foundation, they can enter the fifth stage of "apprenticeship," and learn from experienced organic farmers to become potential organic farmers in the future. In the sixth stage, when apprentice farmers have enough experience, they can become senior organic farmers. With this system, participants in different stages can help each other, such as a senior organic farmer being a teacher at the "Organic Farming Summer Camp" or "Organic Farmer Apprenticeship." In addition, seeds produced by the community organic farmlands can be sold to people farming at home, becoming the force of maintenance for organic farming systems and the promotion of sustainability.

Figure 51 A six-stage process of Organic Swirl

Figure 50 A concept framework of the Xingjian Organic Dream Farm development