A Step-by-Step Talk on Young Farmer Entrepreneurship: An Interview with Chen Mengkai, Convener of Hopemarket Agile Farm School Market

Photography, Transcript / Zhang Jiawei Text and Editing / Luo Yifei

The second issue of Central Taiwan Food Communication reported on young farmer Zhuang Dengjie. The interview team accompanied Dengjie on a visit to Bram Farm to learn, but also wanted to know whether young farmers and small farmers could respond in other ways when facing sales difficulties. For this reason, on a damp, cold, and overcast afternoon, we visited the convener of Hopemarket Agile Farm School Market, hoping to hear more viewpoints and hands-on experience -- because Teacher Mengkai's way of speaking and his arguments were extremely vivid, I feared my own writing ability was insufficient, so I asked Jiawei to first organize the interview transcript (originally more than 9,600 characters), and finally I condensed it to 1,500 characters, hoping to present the essence through excerpts from Teacher Mengkai's own interview.

Returning Home to Farm Is Entrepreneurship

After young farmers return to their hometowns, they often overlook a very important point: 'Who pays his salary?' In the past, someone paid him a salary, but once he enters agriculture and sells agricultural products, he has to pay his own salary. What is that called? -- Entrepreneurship. Before becoming a young farmer, he was also an employee. The thinking of an ordinary employee is only 'get the thing done' or even 'do the thing well,' but for someone who wants to start a business and 'be the boss,' that is not enough -- 'the thing needs to be done right': marketing, sales, management, connecting with the market, and continuous innovation, otherwise someone will soon compete and imitate, or you may even be eliminated yourself.

I bring this up first because I myself am also an entrepreneur, and I am also a boss, but most young farmers I see have not realized they are starting a business. They often think too simply, and their past experience lacks entrepreneurial experience, or they do not even have this kind of thinking... And I want to help young farmers 'start businesses,' but if their thinking does not move forward, frankly speaking, I cannot help either. At the very least, their thinking has to start improving -- after doing it well, they should think about 'doing it right,' 'doing it long,' and 'doing it big.' That is a step-by-step climb upward, so I think coming up 'step by step' is absolutely necessary.

What the Farm School Market Can Offer

So how do you do it? There are three methods: the first core is Hopemarket Agile Farm School Market, that is, the 'community.' After all, doing sales all by oneself is extremely difficult: young farmers who are good at growing usually are not very good at selling. They are more willing to be with themselves and with nature, and quite a few even reject selling. But young farmers who are good at selling and want to run sales are less willing to focus on growing, because growing is much harder! If these two types of young farmers could cooperate with and appreciate each other... Therefore, the market is run jointly by different people, letting different people learn from one another.

Of course, in the market, the first thing is: you face consumers directly. 'Why do consumers buy from me? Why do consumers not buy from me? How is this market changing?' You will know very clearly, because who is coming to buy from me, and why are they willing to chat with me? If you make contact and face it directly, you will definitely come to know this market -- but if you hand it over to middlemen to sell, you cannot explore these things. Furthermore, you can build loyal fans, and you can interact directly with consumers and build person-to-person relationships.

And if you want to participate in Hopemarket Agile Farm School Market, the market organizers will first come to do some checks and inspections. Once you pass and take part, other friendly businesses think: 'Great!' Because it is actually not easy for businesses to find trustworthy producers and to want to cooperate with one another, but Hopemarket Agile Farm School Market is like a kind of label. Being able to participate in the market means that, to a certain degree, you have been recognized.

And we are all farming friends who participate in the market. The problems I encounter, you may also encounter, and the problems he encounters are the same. Everyone needs to learn from one another together. So we place great importance on the market -- this is a very important process for young farmers: connecting directly with the market, finding ways to cultivate your own loyal fans, and learning from and cooperating with farming friends and friendly businesses in the market.

Expanding Courses and an AppRecord

For breakthroughs in thinking, we hold a series of courses. They are not meant to make people change their personalities, but to let them know how to interact in a community, because in every community, interaction between people is a body of knowledge. Therefore, we use the method of playing game theory games to experience it -- first, you have to 'send out goodwill.' After all, if we want to cooperate, but no one reaches out first, what should we do? But today I sent out goodwill, and as a result I was bullied. Then what should I do? 'I definitely cannot be a pushover!' I must sit down and talk with you properly and tell you that what you did is not right, because if I am a pushover, the other party will not cooperate and will definitely continue to bully... Suppose again that I send out goodwill, and you do not send out goodwill, so we compete with each other... But in the end you change your mind and send out goodwill, and I will immediately return goodwill to you and cooperate together. To be honest, whether in business or in society, people are in a state of both competition and cooperation, but how to judge the timing -- when to engage in healthy competition and when to cooperate -- this very much needs to be learned.

There is also another way to promote yourself, which is to use today's technology apps and the internet. We developed a set of apps that can instantly photograph and upload how farming friends are cultivating in the fields -- after all, we do not require "third-party verification," but instead do our own certification and inspection, so I can use this app to conduct checks. If a farming friend uses environmentally friendly farming methods, he will certainly be very happy to publicize the good, and may even be deeply afraid that others do not know how he does it! And to be honest, when young farmers become more and more successful, the market is very ruthless. If a farming friend is framed, and someone takes his agricultural products for inspection and says there are pesticide residues, then how can he prove himself? At this time, the use of technological methods becomes very important.

No Rush, Prepare Yourself

So, 'being a young farmer is entrepreneurship' -- this way of thinking has to be established. Once you become a 'boss,' whether or not you have your own fields, sales are very important. If your personality is not very suited to selling, then at least recognize the way of a group of people, using a community to try and cooperate together, and use today's technology apps to record and to publicize the good, while also participating in courses, learning and connecting in many ways, and improving yourself in all aspects... Then, if you have both sales ability and companions with whom you can exchange ideas, and can ask about any problem, it is as if you are all prepared... First understand this area, observe, and study for just two or three years. During this period, work hard to expand yourself, and do not rush -- after all, once you go into farming, it is a thirty-year matter!