Sho Oga, the former president of a Japanese medical supplies company in Thailand, got bitten by the organic bug 12 years ago. A trained marine biologist and keen environmentalist, Oga set up the Harmony Life Organic Farm in the foothills of the Khao Yai mountain range in Pakchong, Nakorn Ratchasima, 140 kilometres north-east of Bangkok. With no previous background in organic farming, Oga, 55, learned the business the hard way.
"The first five years, I lost money," he said. "I lost everything. My house in Japan, I sold. I sold everything. Nothing left." Things started to pick up for the farm, a joint venture with some Thai investors, about three years ago. "The company is doing very well now," Oga said. "But I still haven't made my investment back." One the key ingredients for the new-found success has been its investment in a Moroheiya crop, which accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the farm's 11 hectares and an increasing percentage of revenues.
Moroheiya, which grows in bushes not dissimilar to small tea plants, is also known as the Pharoah's vegetable, Jew's Mallow and Corchuros, and has been part of the Egyptian diet for centuries. The vegetable is high in nutrition, with twice as much calcium, manganese, beta carotene and vitamin A as spinach. In Japan, where the vegetable is deemed an anti-toxic, Moroheiya is used in tea bags and food supplement capsules.
Harmony Life Organic Farm has turned the vegetable into a green noodle product that is now available in Bangkok restaurants such as the MK Sukiyaki chain. The company has also created a Moroheiya instant noodle product that it exports to the US, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Europe. "I created it as a non-fried noodle, high in nutrition, no preservatives, no artificial colouring and made with all organic ingredients," Oga said of his instant noodles, which sell under the Harmony Life and GreeNoodle brand names.
The noodles have obtained organic certification from the US Department of Agriculture, the International Organic Farmers Association and Organic Thailand. Harmony Life claims to be the first and only company producing organic, non-fried instant noodles made from Moroheiya, which gives them a distinctive green colour. "Children normally don't like vegetables, but if you make noodles out of vegetables they will eat it," Oga beamed.
Although Moroheiya is well known in Japan, the organic instant noodle is not selling like hot cakes there. "The US market is taking off very quick, but not Japan," Oga said of his export markets. "Japan is not so keen on organic. For organic farms you need to have a lot of land and no neighbours, which is difficult in Japan."
Under the different organic certification rules, land must lie fallow for two to three years to rid it of chemicals, and must be at least 20 metres away from any farm using chemicals. Despite the huge demand for organic products in Europe and the US, the sector remains underdeveloped in Thailand, one of Asia's few net food exporters.
"There is a lot of potential for organic exports, but Thailand has a supply shortage," said Wilasinee Poonuchuaphai, who has been working with the German Technical Co-operation on a project to train Thai farmers to go organic. "Our farmers, who have been using chemicals for so long, will take time to convert to organic," Wilasinee said. Other long-time proponents of organic farming agree.
"The expansion is going on but it's not skyrocketing," said Vitoon Panyakul, director of Green Net, a co-operative that has encouraged farmers to grow organic rice for more than a decade. Vitoon estimated that there were 29,644 hectares of land under organic cultivation as of 2009, compared with 1,602 hectares nine years earlier. "In the past two years I've seen a trend of more companies going into organic processed foods and getting certified," Vitoon said. "There is a big demand for organic processed food."
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