Secret Organic Gardens for China’s Elite

March 15th, 2012

Via: Los Angeles Times:

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.

“The officials don’t really care what the common people eat because they and their family are getting a special supply of food,” said Gao Zhiyong, who worked for a state-run food company and wrote a book on the subject.

4 Responses to “Secret Organic Gardens for China’s Elite”

  1. pessimistic optimist says:

    seems so familiar somehow, yet i cant quite put my finger on why?

  2. Noble says:

    Well, well, just like the Queen’s tenant farmers. No GMO in those gardens.

    In fact, America is probably the only place where our leaders stuff their faces full of the same McGarbage they feed their public. We can give them points for that, at least, I suppose.

  3. pessimistic optimist says:

    lol tho it probably says more about americas “leaders” role in the global hierarchy than it says about their values. ya britain was def what i was thinking of.

    as for given em points for effort, i think it goes far in explaining their behavior if they are full of heavy metals. tho you might be surprised which circles do know about the toxic effects and simply dont talk about it.

  4. pessimistic optimist says:

    Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
    -Carl Sagan

    ambiguity abounds; honestly i wouldnt wish that toxic sh*t on anyone, even teh wealthy after what they done.

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