Thursday, June 19, 2008

Going to KL at 2am

The girls left to go back to Singapore this morning and I met with Mr Ch and had a nice and lengthy interview with him. I'm very pleased. He also gave me a few numbers to call the tomato plantations whom I spotted on the boxes of tomatoes in Singapore.

He also gave me the numbers of several members in the assocation that I hope to call regarding cabbage. Malay farmers next week and indian farmers to follow. There was recently this "expose" on a farm in Cameron Highlands "illegally" clearing land. Gah. There is a lot of loopholes with legality. Either you get away with it or you get pinned down for something you didn't do. Life sucks.

Either way, I was hoping to talk to this farm even before they were featured. Now I just got more work to do to convince them I'm harmless. Damn press. Spoil my market! Fortunately I talked to his consultant yesterday and got the story.

So tomorrow I'm going to KL with the organic farmer to deliver vegetables. I'm excited. We are leaving at 2am. I better go back and nap now.

On the other hand, I was getting very despondent about being rejected but prof say rejected also is a result. So I have to go get rejected 10 times.

10 x Tomato
10 x Cabbage
10 x Big
10 x Small
10 x Chinese
10 x Malay
10 x Indian
10 x Singapore
10 x Non-Singapore
10 x Organic

But so many of them overlap. Does it matter then? I need 15 cabbage and 15 tomatoes total.

I also need to go check out the collectors, exporters, transporters, input sales people - fertilizers, seeds, infrastructure, pesticides shops.

I'm also having serious issues with getting climate data and map. I'm going to try again... wish me luck. Hope they like me. Or I just pay more $$$

Speaking of which I have been wanting to treat my respondents to lunch or dinner but I keep getting treated instead! omfg! First of all, I'm female. It's hard for them to accept being treated by me. Then I'm younger. Then I'm a guest from Singapore. Omfg! I really need to push my way and start treating people makan! It's so cheap anyways. Oh right at least my driver has totally stopped resisting me paying for everything. Gawd the petrol is fucking expensive. More than 100RM for a full tank or something. Sigh. I'm so glad I'm not using the car everyday. I hope I can claim back everything.

Need to ask AVA on what their pesticides list is based on. Do they update their list when there are new pesticides introduce? Why yes, why not? How often? Based on what? Based on who? Whose standards?

No comments: