The road home for Peng Yurong, founder of the Hualien-Taitung Vegetable Market

On the farmland beside Hualien County Road 193, Gao Mingli's family grows two hundred perfume lemon trees (Citrus limon 'Perfume'). They use no pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and any lemons they cannot sell they give away to relatives and friends. But they usually give away more than they sell, to the point that even their relatives and friends beg them to stop.

At the end of last year, to solve her sales problem, Gao Mingli went to take a course at the Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station. "For us farmers, marketing is really not easy. It is not something you can learn just by taking a course. I still hope someone can help with marketing." In the course at the Hualien station, Gao Mingli met Hualien-Taitung Vegetable Market founder Peng Yurong, and the two worked out together a processing method and product packaging for the perfume lemons.

Local Sales Channels, Stable Income

After Gao Mingli began working with Hualien-Taitung Vegetable Market, the perfume lemons were processed into dried fruit, candied fruit and tea bags. With exquisite product packaging, they sold steadily after hitting the market, and Gao Mingli's monthly income was not only stable but higher than that of an average office worker in Hualien.

Since starting up last September, Hualien-Taitung Vegetable Market has helped nearly twenty pesticide-free or organically cultivating farmers in the Hualien-Taitung area sell their agricultural products. Peng Yurong said: "We are a sales channel, and also like the farmers' agent, helping farmers develop ways to process their products and finding designers to package the products. The goal is to sell the farmers' products and give them a stable income."

With the support of family elders, Peng Yurong and his younger cousin Peng Deyuan co-founded Hualien Vegetable Market, with the two dividing the work of product development and shipping and receiving. Peng Yurong sets himself the requirement of meeting at least two or three new farmers each month, and together with the farmers he already works with, he visits places all over Hualien almost every day.

On the day the reporter visited, we accompanied Peng Yurong to call on three farmers. One of the newly met farmers wore a hat bearing the words "Decisive Battle over the Suhua Freeway" and the emblem of the Kuomintang. During Peng Yurong's chat with the farmer, this hat was just an inconspicuous presence, but eight years ago, whether or not to build the Suhua Freeway was an issue that stirred public attention nationwide.