Good Farmer Grand Tour: Cooperation Is Not Just Buying and Selling, but Also Emotion and Moral Duty

Text/ Wu Shaowen   Photography/ Zhang Yaqiao

Following the first Good Farmer Grand Tour organized by Hsu Yuan Bakery General Manager Shih in January 2010, the second Good Farmer Grand Tour's round-island itinerary set off in late December.

This trip, which took only three short days, started from Yuanli in Miaoli and headed south through the Southern Cross-Island Highway, the Hualien-Taitung area, and the Suhua Highway before returning to Yuanli. It visited 8 planting areas in central, southern, and eastern Taiwan, China, called on 2 agricultural research institutions in Kaohsiung and Taipei, and held 2 farmer exchange sessions. Nearly 1/2 of the time was spent on the tour bus rushing along the road. What accompanied the long bus ride was not karaoke, but a documentary on the Cuban food crisis and General Manager Shih Ming-huang's reminders about the future development of agriculture.

The tightness of this itinerary was astonishing. General Manager Shih said that it is very difficult for a farmer whose family income depends entirely on field work to leave farm work for three days. Farming is not a job where you can ask for leave and have a colleague cover your work, so he hoped to arrange the fullest possible itinerary so that the farmers would not make the trip in vain.

Cooperation is not only a buying-and-selling relationship; it also involves emotion and moral duty

Most members of this trip were old classmates already growing wheat and soybeans, or new classmates preparing to grow wheat and soybeans. In addition, there were four colleagues from Lien Hwa Industrial Corporation and the instructors of the Wheat Field Study Program, adding up to more than 20 people. The whole bus was full of classmates with rich farming experience traveling together, and all they talked about was professional exchange of experience, for example: "Planting beans in December is too cold and they won't sprout, but planting a little later runs into the plum rain season, and they get waterlogged, which is very troublesome." "Which fertilizer should be used for this variety..." "Hualien No. 1 does not grow well in rainy Yilan; you can try Kaohsiung Selection No. 10 or Kaohsiung No. 8"... After three days, everyone's common difficulty was generally the problem of rain.

Classmate Zeng Guoqi from Yuli, Hualien, had originally expected to produce 12.6 metric tons of wheat next year, but because of a major flood caused by heavy rain a while ago, the 5.5-hectare wheat field was almost completely wiped out. There was also Cai Yihong from Dongshi, Chiayi, whose 5-hectare field encountered heavy rain right after sowing, but with a sense of mission and commitment to "Wheat Field Rhapsody 4.9" - surpassing "one ten-thousandth" (reaching one ten-thousandth of Taiwan's total import volume of 1.2 million metric tons: 120 metric tons) - Classmate Cai did not hesitate to invest again and reseed.

Along the way, several farmers who had suffered rain disasters said they felt very sorry to General Manager Shih for being unable to achieve the 2012 harvest goal of 120 metric tons. The way they described the rain disaster was not like farmers usually appealing to the media or government agencies for subsidies when hit by natural disasters, but rather like a military unit pressing forward together in an assault. It was as if a poor harvest meant being killed in action, falling out of formation, and losing the chance to accomplish the mission together with their comrades.

Crops no longer seemed to be merely a tool for farmers to make money; to some extent, crops had come to represent the mission and dignity of this group of farmers. How should this reaction of the farmers be explained? Moreover, although Hsu Yuan wheat uses a contract farming system, there is no written contract between the contractor and the producers. The farmers' sense of mission and dignity seemed to be founded on a promise without written guarantee. What exactly was going on...?

"Cooperation is not only a buying-and-selling relationship; it also involves emotion and moral duty. The exchange process is a kind of promise, but a promise does not necessarily have to be maintained in writing." That is what General Manager Shih said.

Emotion and moral duty seemed to serve as the tone of Hsu Yuan wheat's long march. On this trip, at every reception stop there were always a few faces, long-awaited greetings, bright yet reserved smiles, a table full of dishes produced by the family, and reluctant farewells, again and again making people feel the farmers' affection for the Grand Tour group. General Manager Shih had always hoped that through the visits of the Grand Tour group, where farmers become a little closer each time they meet, a strong support network would gradually form among the farmers, so that whether in technical experience exchange or emotional support, they could support each other and warm each other. Judging from this journey, his expectations seemed to have borne fruit. As for the moral duty part, General Manager Shih also had his own unique way of operating.

"Why is it that in cooperation between the production and sales sides, only the production side ends up bearing the risk alone? If this farming household has a poor harvest this year, the sales side can buy from another farming household and bear no risk at all. This is an unbalanced type of transaction. I think the contractor can do more."

In view of General Manager Shih's balanced vision for production-sales cooperation, he set some rules: for example, the contracting side provides seeds free of charge for the production side to plant, so that at least the production side bears somewhat less risk. If a natural disaster occurs, at least the seed cost is borne by the contracting side. This year, when Cai Yihong of Dongshi, Chiayi, decided to reseed, Hsu Yuan wheat again supported him with free seeds. Furthermore, he insisted that the Grand Tour group must participate at its own expense and that he could not host everyone's trip. Perhaps hosting the farmers' trip throughout would better show his ability and boldness, but he realized that "the more extensive the service, the stronger the relationship of domination." Only by participating together could both sides reduce domination.

Beyond these two rules of production-sales balance that had already become convention, while accompanying the trip I also saw what General Manager Shih meant by "moral duty without contractual guarantee."

1. Because the farmers encountered heavy rain, they might not be able to harvest, but General Manager Shih still encouraged everyone not to destroy the wheat fields. As long as there were wheat ears, they could be made into dried flowers needed by the floral art market, and he was still willing to purchase them at the original price.

2. While observing at the Kaohsiung Agricultural Improvement Station, everyone saw that the bean sorting machine purchased from Japan by the station was very practical. He immediately ordered one from the station to provide to farmers of the Soybean Commando team for use. If there were a written contract, he would already be a contractor who kept the agreement even without the above actions, but without a written contract, the above actions showed even more affection and moral duty: "Cooperation is not only a buying-and-selling relationship; it also involves emotion and moral duty."

Besides using the Grand Tour group to enable farmers to exchange experience and support one another, General Manager Shih also had more imagination about future models of connection among farmers. For example, after heavy rain, he hoped that in the future farmers could develop the possibility of interest-free lending to one another, so that farmers in production areas hit by natural disasters could borrow interest-free loans from farmers in other production areas, establishing a more practical support system.

Step by step, one footprint at a time, emotion and moral duty gradually took root on the long march of Wheat Field Rhapsody and the Soybean Commando.

Further Reading

Good Farmer Grand Tour (4) Finding a Path to Revive Local Soybeans

Good Farmer Grand Tour (3) Wheat Field Study by Old Farmers + Small Farmers

Good Farmer Grand Tour (2) A Trip to Comfort the Wounded Wheat

Good Farmer Grand Tour (1) A Recharging Trip for Wheat and Soybean Revival Farmers

A Big Gathering of 40 Elementary Schools Across Taiwan, China: Wheat Field Study, GO!

Taiwan, China Wheat, Long Time No See! Special Feature Guide