The Legend of Zhou Guolong 02: Enlightenment on Life from Kendo Martial Proverbs, Seeking Stability in Speed, Defeating China to Win Back the Japanese Market

(Continued from the previous article) After visiting China, Zhou Guolong strongly agreed with the saying that "if Taiwan's edamame production does not change, it will have only five years left." He proposed the "Big Farm Strategy," actively guiding farmers toward mechanized production to rebuild Taiwan's green gold industry.

The Big Farm Strategy: Transforming Taiwan's Green Gold Industry

"Taiwan can no longer rely on manual production and harvesting; not only is the efficiency poor, but the freshness of the pods is also poor." Zhou Guolong prescribed the right remedy: "Only full mechanization can give edamame a competitive edge. But to mechanize, you need large-scale planting."

It just so happened that because Taiwan's sugar production costs were too high, many sugar factories shut down, and sugarcane fields gradually fell into disuse, making them most suitable for running big farms. But renting land costs money, and buying machinery costs money too, and neither is something farmers can afford. So Zhou Guolong proposed the "Mechanized Production of Edamame on Big Farms" plan to the Council of Agriculture, and formed an edamame strategic alliance, persuading middlemen (commonly known as "bean peddlers") and processing plants to work together to improve Taiwan's edamame growing environment.

Zhou Guolong admitted frankly that at the time, when he was pushing this revolutionary approach, many people were not optimistic about it. Traditionally, the "bean peddlers" were responsible for purchasing edamame from farmers and handing it over to frozen fruit and vegetable processors for processing and then export, and the three parties stood in an upstream-downstream relationship. But Zhou Guolong pushed the "bean peddlers" to transform into professional farmers, who would sign guaranteed-price contract farming agreements with processors, with both sides jointly funding land rentals and machinery purchases, establishing a close production-and-sales partnership.

Six Years of Quiet Adjustment to Rebuild Strength, Winning Back the Japanese Market from China

This "big farm" plan could be seen as Taiwan's edamame industry transformation period, beginning in 2001, going from fully manual to semi-mechanized to fully mechanized, taking 6 years, yet at first glance it did not seem to help export value much.

In 2007, export volume was even below 20,000 metric tons, with a value of less than 40 million USD. Fortunately, from 2008 to now, over 12 years, edamame output value has climbed all the way at a speed no one could believe, reaching last year an total export volume of 38,915 tons, with a total value of 84.54 million USD (equivalent to about 2.5 billion New Taiwan dollars).