Taiwan's agriculture faces a labor shortage, as young adults return home to farm and carry on the tradition while pursuing their dreams
During the busy harvest season, labor shortages trouble many farmers. To solve the problem of seasonal skilled-labor shortages and stabilize the agricultural workforce, the Council of Agriculture has partnered with farm owners to launch organizations such as Agricultural Technology Teams and Agricultural Cultivation Teams across Taiwan. As of now, the Agricultural Technology Teams have established 14 teams in various counties and cities, with about 697 members having participated. The main categories requiring labor are fruit tree and vegetable industries, and because the demand for labor is mostly seasonal, the number of person-times matched to demand is high, currently reaching 29,369 person-times. As for the main vegetable production areas and farming areas with labor shortages, as of Year 108 (2019), a total of 17 Agricultural Cultivation Teams have been set up, each admitting 20-30 agricultural cultivators. Their purpose is to provide stable regional agricultural labor and to improve the problem of low-skilled labor shortages.
Learning real-world secrets Young farmers gain rich rewards from hands-on work
Holding the high-value crop red quinoa under the blazing sun, 34-year-old Lai Chien-hung's eyes are full of happiness. He introduces the red quinoa harvest conditions and his farming experience. It is hard to imagine that just over 2 years ago he was a shift worker at a printing factory in Taipei. Now he is an agricultural mentor in the Pingtung Pingbei Team and also a representative of young people returning home. Farming has always been his dream, and the Agricultural Technology Team helped him fulfill it.
Lai Chien-hung lives in Zuoying, Kaohsiung, with his wife and 2-year-old daughter. Every day he commutes like an office worker to farms in Pingtung Pingbei, regularly cooperating with different farm owners and experiencing various crops. He says he had the intention to farm from the start, but when he tried to find land and farming opportunities on his own, he hit walls everywhere. Fortunately, he saw information about the Agricultural Technology Team. After signing up and completing training, 2 years of hands-on experience allowed him to accumulate a great deal of agricultural knowledge, and learning from farm owners gave him "real-world secrets" that cannot be learned from textbooks.
At the Pingbei Team, Lai Chien-hung first grew hybrid citron, and later also participated in planting and harvesting eggplant and jujube. Joining the Agricultural Technology Team took him from zero to something, like a walkthrough for a video game, letting him become familiar with farming practice in the shortest time. It also provided him with direction and reference for finding land and choosing crops to grow in the future.
Lai Chien-hung says farming has always been his dream, and the Agricultural Technology Team helped him fulfill it.
Zhang Ting-wei, a 26-year-old member of the Hsinchu Emei Team, had worked as an ironworker and in other jobs before joining the Agricultural Cultivation Team last year. He later signed up online, passed an interview, then took a series of lecture courses, and then went to farms for hands-on work. Rotating through different farms once every 3 months, from tea fields to orchards, let him learn many different farming experiences. For the future, he hopes to continue staying in the Agricultural Cultivation Team, where he can not only learn from different farm owners but also have a stable income.
Zhang Ting-wei, who works as an agricultural cultivator, also admits that few young people want to do this now, since it is relatively labor-intensive work. But from his actual observation, he has found that many agricultural areas in Taiwan experience labor shortages. He very much hopes to use his example to encourage young people to join the Agricultural Cultivation Team and strive for Taiwan's agriculture.
Agricultural cultivator Zhang Ting-wei wants to encourage young people to join the Agricultural Cultivation Team and strive for Taiwan's agriculture. (Photo provided by Zhang Ting-wei)
Career soldier retires and finds a new battlefield in agriculture
Hong Chi-hui, team leader of the first Pingtung Hengchun Team and an agricultural mentor, has a hearty laugh and a sturdy build. Talking about why he joined the Agricultural Technology Team, he says with a smile that when he was a career soldier he worked in an office, and only after truly engaging in farming did he realize how hard farming really is. However, he says he learned much knowledge that cannot be found in books, and from older-generation farmers he learned valuable farming techniques.
Hong Chi-hui lives in Pingtung, and his own family also farms. After retiring from the military, he went abroad and returned to Taiwan 5 years later, then worked at the aquarium near his home, helping his family farm on Saturdays and Sundays. After his father had a stroke in 2011, he began devoting himself wholeheartedly to agricultural cultivation. After joining the technology team in 2018, it was as if he "evolved" into another field, learning various farming techniques. He says farming is about diligence, observation, and learning.
After joining the technology team last year, daily farm work made his body stronger. Pointing to weeds in the distance, he says that every day he has to compete with these grasses; the grass grows fast, so people must be even more diligent in weeding. He says that when he first joined the Agricultural Technology Team it was actually very tough, but later, through actual farming and observation, he knew to look for methods. For example, when planting rice paddies, at first he cut by hand and worked until his hands were raw. After continuous training and learning "secret techniques," he knew how to work more efficiently.
Hong Chi-hui says he often goes to see how older-generation farmers cultivate. When he sees something he does not quite understand, he asks about it, and through learning he gains new knowledge, which makes him feel especially relaxed at work every day. He also personally took a reporter to see his working conditions, starting from how he cares for lychee trees on the farm and how they should be pruned, as if talking about how he takes care of his own children, carefully tending the crops. He jokes that there is no PhD in farming; everyone slowly trains and observes to find the most suitable method.
Hong Chi-hui is currently an agricultural mentor, working on farms in the Pingtung Hengchun area. After one farm finishes harvesting, he goes to another farm to work. He currently grows red dragon fruit and Yuherbau lychee, and also has regular farm owners to work with; both sides have a tacit understanding of cooperation. For him, the Agricultural Technology Team is nonstop daily learning, learning farming through practice.
Focusing on solving the current agricultural labor shortage, the Agricultural Technology Team currently adopts a relatively open selection method at the front end in order to obtain more manpower willing to engage in agricultural work. The first-stage selection conditions do not set thresholds for age, gender, past work experience, and so on. Instead, it first broadly accepts candidates and then makes selections during the data review period. In addition, because agricultural field work has high physical demands, the first-stage selection also uses physical fitness tests for screening.
