Yilan's old late-maturing soybean varieties pack a rich bean aroma, brewing a truly local soy sauce

Text / by Liang Hung-pin, special correspondent for News & Market

Just after the start of spring, rice farmers on the Lanyang Plain are preparing to transplant the first rice crop of the season. The scene should have been farmers bending over to plant seedlings in flooded paddies, but in a just-prepared 0.6-hectare dry field in the Zhonglun community of Toucheng, the newly turned soil is so soft that a footstep sinks several centimeters in. A grain seeder is rumbling in.

Wu Yu-chou, a 35-year-old young farmer who originally grew rice, and Ma Yu-an, chairman of the board of the Zhongdu Agricultural Production Cooperative, have just loaded the native soybean variety Kaohsiung Selection No. 10 and non-GMO Tainan No. 3 green-kerneled black soybeans into the seeder. The two men stand in the field, one behind the other, solemnly directing the seeder to move straight ahead while checking whether the seeds have indeed been placed properly.

Ma Yu-an says excitedly: "This is the first time in the history of the Lanyang Plain that large grain seeders and harvesters have appeared. It symbolizes that grain cultivation on the Lanyang Plain has entered a new era!" Wu Yu-chou says: "This field originally grew purple rice, but the soil is severely sandy, water drains quickly, and it has to be pumped continuously for irrigation." Suiting the crop to the land, under Wu Shao-wen's recommendation they fortunately switched to growing beans; the 0.6-hectare plot was sown in about three hours.