食獸 寫:
人離鄉賤
物離鄉貴 ~
Not really, the point is, he can self-finance BEFORE the fair-trade policy come in, so the new "rules" in the game kill his business, not because of 人離鄉賤, 物離鄉貴.
Policy is a strange thing, it does not necessarily bind with the nature market rules, you don't have to go aboard for cases like this. I can share with you some observation from Fujian where I work last year.
The price of 龍眼 in 福建 wet-market was around RMB $5 per 500g, some might be higher depends on condition and size. This is local species, and 福建 is the one of the major 龍眼 farming location in China. I think the price is on the high side compare to what I had in Shanghai, so I talked to them about this, and they told me that, the cheapest place to get 福建龍眼 in the whole country is in Bejing, and Shanghai comes second. It is government policy that these "prime" locations must maintain steady supply of "high quality" farming goods from all over the country, so they MUST sell to Bejing first, before they sell to local market. All authorised purchase orders from Bejing must be shipped at "government control price" which is $2.x per 500g, and the farmer in 福建 has to pay for the transportation when they sell at this price, but if the farmer sell to the local wholesaler, they can sell at $4 per 500g.
This is an example of 物離鄉賤, so the rules that work for price of 野生泰菲河短鯛 does not necessarily happening in other commodity when policy kicks in, and this include so-called fair trade, free market policy.