Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common questions about social farming, corporate ESG partnerships and sustainability data. Each answer stands on its own, making it easy to share with colleagues or cite in search and AI results.
What is Selvans Social Farm?
Selvans Social Farm (registered as Selvans Social Agriculture Development Enterprise) is a social farming platform founded in 2022 in Daxi District, Taoyuan, Taiwan. Selvans connects farms run by social-welfare organisations to grow herbs together, building a complete supply chain from cultivation through processing to sale. People with disabilities and those in mental-health recovery gain work and income on the farms, while every corporate purchase is converted into auditable ESG data.
What is a social farm, and how does it differ from an agritourism or organic farm?
Social farming combines agricultural production with social care: alongside growing crops, the farm delivers therapeutic, rehabilitative, educational and employment functions. Compared with agritourism, the core output of a social farm is employment and recovery for disadvantaged groups. Compared with organic farming, the difference is not the cultivation method but who works in the field — and how that work is recorded as disclosable social impact data.
Where is Selvans Social Farm located?
Selvans Social Farm is based in Daxi District, Taoyuan, Taiwan, while its partner social-welfare organisation farms are distributed across the country. Corporate visits, volunteer days and family days are usually held at the Daxi farm; the Xishou Herb Partnership is a three-year partnership with one social-welfare farm.
How large is Selvans? How many people take part?
Current public figures: Workdays by participants from disadvantaged backgrounds 1,644person-days; Social-welfare organisation farms in the supply chain 8farms; Participants in sustained, long-term engagement 71%; Hours of work by participants from disadvantaged backgrounds 8,528hours. These come from systematic weekly reporting by partner farms, checked report by report (with manual review where needed) and published on the Selvans sustainability dashboard. They are supply-chain totals, not any single company's results; to report farm outcomes in its own sustainability report, a company needs a long-term partnership such as the Xishou Herb Partnership, which yields figures attributed to that partnership.
Selvans is a small social enterprise — how does it work with several social-welfare organisations, and where do the responsibilities sit?
Selvans is a platform and supply-chain integrator. Each partner farm is run by an independent social-welfare organisation under a contract-cultivation and data-reporting relationship; Selvans handles supply-chain integration, product development and data records, and does not manage the farms' staff, finances or service users. So a company contracts with Selvans, while the on-farm social services remain the responsibility of each organisation. The boundary is clear: Selvans is accountable for the data and supply chain; the welfare organisations are accountable for the people they serve.
How can a company partner with Selvans?
Selvans offers three collaboration packages: Gift Companion (herb gift boxes and seasonal corporate gifting, from 100 units), Employee Companion (corporate family days, volunteer activities, horticulture and aromatherapy wellbeing sessions) and the Xishou Herb Partnership (a three-year partnership in which one social-welfare farm works with one company). All three include a live data page, impact data cards and Buying Power filing support.
Can the data from a Selvans partnership go into our sustainability report? Which indicators does it map to?
Yes — but two groups of indicators work differently. For G-32 and S-3, the procurement value, participation figures and quantified outcomes Selvans supplies are exactly what the criteria ask for. For E-16, E-14, the first criterion is whether your company has established and disclosed a policy — that is your own governance, which Selvans cannot provide; what Selvans supplies is the implementation evidence for the second criterion. A quarterly ESG data report is issued in your company's name, and every figure traces back to a specific week and farm, so evidence is available if an assessor or auditor challenges it.
What is Buying Power, and does procurement from Selvans qualify?
Buying Power is Taiwan's "Procurement Incentive Mechanism for Social Innovation Products and Services", administered by the Small and Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs. Companies purchasing from registered social innovation organisations can apply for awards. Selvans is listed in the social innovation organisation database, and every package includes Buying Power filing support, covering procurement evidence and impact documentation.
What products does Selvans offer? Can individuals buy them?
Selvans herb products include artisan egg rolls, herb noodles, basil drip coffee and spice gift boxes, grown under contract by partner social-welfare farms. Individuals can order directly from the shop on the Selvans website, paying by credit card or convenience store through an encrypted checkout. For bulk corporate orders and custom gift boxes, please contact the corporate partnership team.
Is there any pesticide residue concern with Selvans produce?
Selvans uses regenerative, pesticide-free cultivation. Produce is tested for pesticide residue every six months with a zero-detection standard. Every gift box carries an impact data card and QR traceability, showing the farm, harvest date and cultivation record for that batch.
What can a corporate volunteer day or family day at Selvans involve?
Typical activities include shared field work, herb harvesting and processing, hands-on pesto making, horticulture and aromatherapy wellbeing sessions, and shared meals and cultivation alongside the people we serve. Participation numbers, volunteer hours and inclusive-interaction records are documented as evidence for the social section of your ESG disclosure.
What is social procurement, and how does it differ from a donation?
Social procurement means a company buys goods or services from a social enterprise; a donation transfers money with nothing delivered in return. Because procurement involves a real transaction and deliverable, it produces an auditable supply-chain record that can be booked as procurement spend and disclosed in the social section of a sustainability report. Selvans Social Farm supplies herb gift boxes with batch traceability and disability-employment hour data — evidence a donation receipt cannot provide.
How do you obtain evidence for the social metrics in a sustainability report?
Evidence has to trace back to source records, not just a headline number. Ask suppliers for three layers: the source record (who did what, and when), the aggregation method (how the disclosed figure is derived), and the verification step (who confirms it). Selvans data comes from weekly reports logged by eight partner farms run by social-welfare organisations; each is checked by the system, with anything questionable reviewed manually, before it counts, so any figure can be traced back to the reporting week and the farm.
What forms can corporate partnerships on disability employment take?
There are four common forms: direct hiring, procurement from sheltered workshops, supported-employment partnerships that provide training placements, and supply-chain social procurement from organisations that employ people with disabilities. Selvans Social Farm is the fourth: it links eight farms run by social-welfare organisations where people with disabilities or in psychiatric recovery earn work and income, so corporate purchases support that supply chain directly.
How does an ESG gift box differ from an ordinary charity gift box?
The difference is whether the data can be audited. A charity gift box usually only proves that a purchase happened; an ESG gift box must answer what the purchase produced, who made it, and how many working hours it supported. The test is whether the supplier can provide batch traceability and quantified production records. Selvans gift boxes are grown under contract by farms run by social-welfare organisations, and each carries an impact data card and QR traceability back to the farm and harvest record.
How much does a partnership cost? Are prices published?
Selvans publishes indicative price ranges (indicative, adjusted to the actual programme): corporate volunteer day NT$850–1,500 per person; corporate family day NT$1,500–2,500 per person; ESG gift boxes from NT$500 per box (minimum 100 boxes). The Xishou Herb Partnership is a three-year partnership quoted per project. A written quotation follows the contact form on the Selvans website.
How do we get started with Selvans?
Complete the contact form on the Selvans website, email selvanscyd@gmail.com, or call +886 925-527388 (also on LINE). Selvans will first understand your sustainability disclosure needs and budget range, then provide the matching package details and sample impact data.
Want to explore further?
- Sustainability dashboard：Public impact figures and SDG alignment
- Corporate partnership：Compare the three packages and their data
- Sustainability insights：Practical guidance for ESG teams (Chinese)
- Shop：Herb gift boxes and processed goods (Chinese)