What payments are associated with an adoption?
The payments involved in an adoption vary depending on the type of project you order from, and the harvesting season of the product itself.
For crops that have ongoing harvesting periods, with multiple boxes reserved at the time of placing the adoption, the total price is split up into separate payments.
The initial adoption payment covers the cost of cultivating the produce, and the reservation of your harvest ahead of time, and this price is set by the farmer themselves. Most of these adoptions require that you reserve a minimum of 2 boxes for the season, and you can plan the deliveries for different dates in the next step. Once the adoption itself has been confirmed, you can log in to your account to plan the deliveries of each of your boxes. This way, you are able to select your preferred delivery date for each box, and it is at this point that you pay the remaining part of the overall price. When you plan each delivery, you pay the part of the order that covers logistics costs, that includes everything from harvesting the produce to packing it and it being shipped to your door.
The other type of adoption is for produce that has only one harvest, and thus one shipment, per season.
In this case, since there is only one shipment date for all of the adoptions, the delivery date is determined ahead of time. For this reason there is no need to split up the total cost into separate payments, as you don’t have to organise the delivery separately. For this type of adoption, there is one single payment which includes the cultivation and reservation of the harvest, as well as all logistics costs.
Below you will find an example of each type of adoption:
An orange tree adoption is an example of the first type of adoption, since oranges have a long harvesting season.
You would start by choosing the project you’d like to order from, and how many boxes of harvest you’d like to reserve for the season, let’s say 3, for example. You’d go ahead and pay the initial adoption cost, and you can use the cost calculator to preview the logistics costs as well. Once confirmed, the information about the adoption and your tree would then appear in the ‘Garden’ page of your account. From there you click on the adoption itself, and you see the option to plan your deliveries. You can choose to plan the 3 deliveries at the same time, or you can do it one by one. That’s totally up to you! There is a shipment calendar, and using this you can select your preferred delivery dates from any of the ones that are available. Once you select your preferred date, you then fill in the delivery address and complete the order, paying only the logistics cost.
An olive tree adoption is an example of the single shipment adoption, as all of the olives for one given project tend to ripen and be ready for harvest at the same time.
In this case, you’d just choose the project you’d like to order from, and make a one time payment that already includes the logistics cost.
Once the olives are harvested, the farmer has them pressed to produce the extra virgin olive oil. Then they prepare all the orders to be shipped together as soon as possible, since each order will be ready at the same time, and they want each CrowdFarmer to receive the freshest possible product. Because the shipment date is determined ahead of time, and does not need to be organised separately, the logistics cost is already included in the total adoption price paid when placing the order.
