2016 Pingtung Tropical Agriculture Expo Opens with Fanfare on the 30th

After a 5-year absence, the Pingtung Tropical Agriculture Expo resumes this year, with a 27-hectare site divided into 12 major themed areas, featuring Taiwan's first 3D stereoscopic totem colored rice paddy depicting non-cute-style glove puppet characters, an 800-meter-long green gourd and fruit corridor, a 3.5-hectare rainbow flower sea, and a leisure agriculture special exhibition area. The event kicks off with fanfare on January 30 and runs through February 29, a 30-day event with free admission. County Magistrate Pan Meng-an welcomes people from all over the country to come to Pingtung, to witness and experience a different kind of tropical agricultural art and atmosphere, and to enjoy the Lunar New Year holiday.

The Pingtung County Government held a press conference at the expo site on the 26th. Amid the cute flower dance performed by children from the Tsai Meng-ying Dance Troupe and the singing of the expo theme song "Farmers Return" by the Chairman Band together with Chen Chien-fu of Wanjin Livestock Farm, County Magistrate Pan Meng-an announced that this new tourist attraction, which uses Pingtung's agriculture, forestry, livestock and fishery industries as elements and integrates art with entertainment and educational functions, would open to the public starting on the 30th.

County Magistrate Pan Meng-an stated that Pingtung is an important production base for agricultural products, flowers, and freshwater and saltwater aquaculture. For this year's Tropical Agriculture Expo, the county government has specially planned different themes. In addition to the colored rice paddy, flower sea, gourd and fruit corridor, and multi-ethnic specialty crop area, there are also food and agriculture experiences, a leisure agriculture exhibition area, and even a quality seafood tasting area and a children's playground. It is absolutely a new attraction suitable for family outings where people can eat and play.

Located along Provincial Highway 27, next to the Yanpu section of National Freeway No. 3, the Pingtung Tropical Agriculture Park covers 27 hectares. A 2-hectare plot has been specially planned to create the world's first 3D stereoscopic totem of Taiwan's indigenous glove puppetry in colored rice paddy. Using the two important protagonists Su Huan-chen and Yi Yeh-shu from Pili Puppetry, combined with 3D computer graphics technology from Cheng Shiu University, and employing four colors of colored rice - purple, white, yellow and green - it presents the elegant and graceful images of the characters from the show.

The park also features Taiwan's largest-scale landscape art, using more than 20 species of flowers and plants such as colorful cosmos, sunflowers, sage, feathered cockscomb and scarlet sage, combined into patterns of flowers, birds, fish and fruit. It also uses variations in terrain elevation to create the three-dimensional flower seas of Dawn Hill and Rainbow Hill, and adds patterns symbolizing abundant harvests of fish and livestock, flowers and fruit, and rural scenery, demonstrating the vision of building a major agricultural county where people can live and work in peace and contentment.

The 12 major themed areas also include food and agriculture experiences demonstrating standard safe farming practices by Farmer University and Yan Nan Fei students and Shen Nong Award farmers, with on-site production introductions to the agricultural production process. The leisure agriculture exhibition area features a theme pavilion, agricultural product sales, and a DIY experience area, introducing distinctive tourism within Pingtung. In addition, the quality seafood tasting area offers displays of various beautiful ornamental fish, and tasting and promotions of diverse fresh fish ingredients.

The Pingtung County Agriculture Department stated that the "Pingtung Tropical Agriculture Expo" runs from January 30 to February 29. Except for February 7 (Chinese New Year's Eve) when the park is closed, daily opening hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free admission. The park has 800 parking spaces, with a parking fee of 100 yuan for cars and 50 yuan for motorcycles. For related event information, please visit the Pingtung County Government official website.