Local Viewpoint 1: The Future of Small-Scale Sustainable Agriculture in Taiwan, China

Lead image/ Guo Zhirong Photography/ Wu Shaowen

At the "Taiwan Community Supported Agriculture Workshop" held in Hsinchu last week, in addition to the wonderful sharing by foreign speakers, the two-day course also featured highly incisive and in-depth local analysis and discussion among domestic speakers and farming friends.

The author observed that all participants on site recognized that if Taiwan, China's current agricultural production and marketing system continues as it is, Taiwan, China will face environmental destruction and a food crisis on a par with national security-level threats. Smallholder farming is a defining feature of agriculture in Taiwan, China. In the face of production and marketing challenges, globalization, and changes in the environment and ecology, where should agriculture in Taiwan, China go?

In the first part of this article, we excerpt and report the views of Tsai Pei-hui, assistant professor at the Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies at Shih Hsin University, on "small-scale sustainable agriculture" in Taiwan, China and the difficulties facing agriculture in Taiwan, China. The second part organizes a topic that different people, at different times during the two-day workshop, unexpectedly converged on, namely that smallholder farming is itself an environmental movement, and how we can support eco-friendly farming through CSA community-supported agriculture.

The problems contemporary smallholders face: production resources, farming methods, and market sales

Before discussing the problems contemporary smallholders face, Tsai Pei-hui defined what "smallholder" means. Originally, smallholder should be defined by the standard that "the agricultural surplus value of a small farm household can sustain the household's reproduction of family labor." According to research, professional rice farmers need 7-8 jia of land, and vegetable farmers need 5 fen of land, to sustain household livelihoods.

However, because farming households in Taiwan, China have long had their own historical context (for example, government policies that used agriculture to support industry) and particular geographical conditions (the short distance between urban and rural areas makes rural areas easily affected by urbanization), the proportion of traditional professional farming households converting into "part-time farming households" is very high, and the proportion of farming households that switch into agriculture through a "half-farming, half-X" approach is also very high. Therefore, the definition of smallholder can include "part-time farming households" and "half-farming, half-X," as long as total household income can sustain family reproduction.

Tsai Pei-hui believes that contemporary smallholders face the following three difficulties: production resources, farming methods, and market sales.

Further reading
All articles in "Eco-friendly Smallholders. International Networking. Relay Documentation"