Yinchuan Sustainable Farm's organic rice growers cultivate agricultural talent through organic life camps

Organic rice growers take on the responsibility of nurturing agricultural talent! Yinchuan Sustainable Farm launches a land restoration revolution through organic life camps

Arriving in Fuli Township, Hualien, Taiwan, China, one is greeted by rice paddies everywhere, and this is Fuli rice, one of the "Three Treasures of Fuli" alongside shiitake mushrooms grown on logs and daylilies. Hualien has the largest organic cultivation area in all of Taiwan, about 2,800-plus hectares, and Yinchuan Sustainable Farm is the largest organic rice grower in all of Taiwan, cultivating 680 hectares of organic rice a year, but for Yinchuan, the connection to this land in Hualien is not merely planting rice in the fields, but taking root locally through "organic life camps."

A 25-year struggle in organic rice! Restoring land to avoid pesticide contamination from neighboring fields

Yinchuan began growing organic rice in 1997. Owner Liang Meizhi recalls that when they first adopted organic farming methods, because the surrounding fields were still conventional farms mainly using pesticides, all the insects came over to their land, and naturally the harvest was poor. However, unable to bear watching the land gradually lose its nutrients under the use of chemical fertilizers, Yinchuan decided to keep planting with this passion, while also encouraging neighboring farmers to begin farming organically.

"Even if you don't use pesticides yourself, the wind blows and the pesticides from next door contaminate you." Liang Meizhi described the biggest obstacle to running an organic operation at the time: neighboring fields. So Yinchuan began to "restore" the surrounding conventional fields, expanding the organic cultivation area one by one, and gradually became the largest organic rice grower in all of Taiwan.

Held for 8 consecutive years, Yinchuan promotes organic life camps locally in Fuli

"Farm children have a strong feeling for the land and for farmers. Watching the land become rock-hard under conventional farming lights a passion for putting organic into practice in their hearts." Liang Meizhi said. Having grown up in the countryside, being a farmer herself, and having graduated from an agricultural college, she launched this revolution called "organic."

Beyond starting with organic cultivation herself, Liang Meizhi also deeply felt that the hardest parts of doing organic are "farmer approval" and "consumers paying." So in 2013, she decided to take it as her duty as a "local enterprise" to hold the first organic life camp, hoping to nurture more organic agriculture talent for Fuli, which has an exceptionally gifted agricultural environment.

"I want to be an organic farmer"! Liang Meizhi wants to cultivate organic talent for 20 years from now

"Every year the organic life camp must protect the most promising farmers and improve rural development." Speaking about why she holds the organic life camp, Liang Meizhi said excitedly that many rural children in Fuli choose to go to big cities to develop, but even if they go to a company in Taipei as employees, they can only earn a meager salary, "because they mostly belong to this land." So Liang Meizhi's organic life camp is packaged with a different theme each year, inviting schoolchildren from Fuli to participate.

Liang Meizhi brings in senior farmers from Yinchuan's production and marketing group as instructors to share their insights from seedling planting, cultivation to harvest, and to promote the importance of organic farming methods. At the organic life camp, when students are asked "Who wants to be a farmer in the future?" most of them raise their hands excitedly, and even shout "I want to be an organic farmer!" Through Liang Meizhi's efforts, the merits of organic agriculture are gradually taking deep root in the hearts of these Fuli children. About 700 elementary and middle school children participate in the organic life camp each year, and from 2013 to now, at least more than 5,000 seeds of organic agriculture talent have been sown, who will take up the torch from the instructors on stage in the future and continue working to promote local, organic agriculture.

Not only organic farmers, Yinchuan has also "grown" a group of loyal customers

However, what the organic life camp wants to cultivate is not only farmers, but also consumers who support organic produce. Liang Meizhi said that the biggest obstacle in promoting organic is first changing farmers, and then changing consumers. Taking rice as an example, she said: "The price of rice is very cheap, so whether rice is organic is not taken seriously by consumers, and for farmers, doing organic has no market." She pointed out the importance of consumer support for promoting organic agriculture, saying that if consumers and farmers are not on the same page, it is very hard to advance organic agriculture.

In addition, Liang Meizhi does not expect all the schoolchildren who participate in the organic life camp to become farmers when they grow up, but rather sees it as an opportunity to change consumers. During the organic life camp, Yinchuan teaches how organic agriculture can change the environment, and the benefits of eating organic crops for the body. Liang Meizhi believes that this can not only change the schoolchildren's views on organic agriculture, but when the children go home and share with their parents, it can also bring the family to support it together. Through the organic life camp, a group of consumers and supporters of organic agriculture is grown.