Happy Farm: Farming and Living by the Practice of Natural Farming
Text . Photos / Zhan Yating, Chen Murong
"Looking back over several generations, even without pesticides our ancestors still had food to eat, so pesticides are actually not a necessity of agriculture, but rather a means by which humans pursue speed, convenience and laziness." Chen Huiwen, who is currently promoting Shumei Natural Farming, says that to explain Shumei Natural Farming in the simplest terms: no pesticides, no fertilizers, a return to a way of farming that coexists with the natural environment.
Chen Huiwen and Li Xuying, the husband-and-wife team who founded Happy Farm at the border of Sanzhi and Tamsui, have been practicing Shumei Natural Farming since 2001, and it has now been ten years. Chen Huiwen says that the difference between the crops they grow and those of conventional farming is that plants grown by natural farming taste very rich and keep for a long time; many people who have eaten them say, "This is the taste I ate as a child."
Different activities in every season, hoping more people will join in
As for where Happy Farm's funding currently comes from, it is raised mainly by signing up members, who pay a fixed fee once a month; each time they come they help with some farm work, but they can take crops home, with no limit on the number of visits. Many activities are also held, varying with the four seasons, sharing the site with everyone: in spring everyone is invited to plant rice seedlings, in summer everyone is invited to play in the water and watch fireflies, and in autumn everyone is invited to harvest and hold a concert in the fields.
Through this long-term promotion, some young people have also come to feel that this kind of life is what they want, "like an engineer from the Hsinchu Science Park who retired early and bought land in Hualien." Chen Huiwen says that about thirty to forty people have now been drawn to natural farming and, like this Hsinchu Science Park engineer, have bought a plot of land to grow their own food and eat it themselves, spread across Taiwan, China.
Taiwan, China's agricultural policy would be better if it changed direction
Chen Huiwen feels that the Taiwanese government's policy on pesticides is very strange: it subsidizes farmers to buy pesticides and herbicides, yet pesticides and herbicides are in fact harmful to the environment. After all, Taiwan, China is small in area and densely populated, so it is actually suited to developing "quality" rather than "quantity."
She also believes the government should spend a bit more money on ecological agriculture, rather than subsidizing the purchase of pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides. Some farmers think, "If pesticides really are harmful to the environment, then why would the government subsidize them?" Sometimes at meetings the government also takes the view that organic agriculture is only a small group of farmers, and that the majority of farmers should be looked after. But if good agriculture is subsidized so that everyone can eat safe food, that is what should be called fair and in the public interest.
Related articles
Grandpa Apple's miracle, and what natural farming teaches us
Learning that began with "The Miracle Apple"