Community Gardens x Urban-Rural Excursion: Observing the "field-based learning" of Beitou Hudi Community

Driven by the Garden City policy, community gardens in Taipei City have been sprouting up everywhere in recent years. The Taipei City Government Department of Economic Development has further actively integrated and connected community gardens with urban agriculture, hoping to create possibilities for cooperation and resource sharing through positive exchanges of technology and experience between the two. The Taipei City Department of Economic Development held an "Urban-Rural Excursion" yesterday (the 18th), leading community garden workers to visit Beitou Hudi Community, hoping to help community garden workers learn from the successful integration experience of rural settlements.

The crops cultivated in Beitou Hudi Community are mainly vegetables. In the past, pesticide spraying affected the local ecology and residents' lives, and the pesticide smell in the air even drifted into school campuses. In order to transform the farming methods of Hudi Community, the local community mothers worked hard to communicate and coordinate with the farmers many times, hoping to establish environmentally friendly farming methods. After a year of effort, Hudi Community is now an organic farming environment with no pesticide spraying.

During the day's event, the "Field-Based Learning Friendly Environment Association" led everyone into the fields together to enjoy the pastoral life of cultivating the land, listen to the community's moving stories, and share how, when the pesticide issue first began to spread, local residents transformed from being opposed to one another into friends fighting side by side. Chen Jiaqi, the biggest driving force behind the "Field-Based Learning Friendly Environment Association," said: "When the pesticide incident broke out, I actively called on the farmers not to apply pesticides, but at first the farmers inevitably resisted, feeling that if they did not use pesticides they would lose their livelihood, and there was even inevitably a wave of doubt. At the time I also felt very sad. Later we chose to change ourselves first, doing it bit by bit. In the end, when these people saw our persistence, the dissenting voices gradually disappeared." The story of Field-Based Learning deeply inspired the community garden workers, and it is hoped that this experience can become an important boost for promoting the city's community gardens!