Meinong District Farmers' Association Spring Plowing Wild Fun: Holiday Farming Experience Now Open for Registration
Experience the slow, green, four-season rural life of Meinong's Hakka countryside. The Meinong District Farmers' Association in Kaohsiung City has planned a series of in-depth farm-experience trips. The first wave offers one-day experience activities, "Spring Plowing: Seeking Wild Fun" and "Summer Cultivation: Reporting Rice Fragrance," themed respectively on wild vegetables and rice, inviting travelers to wear flip-flops and join in discovering the joys of the rural ecological environment and wild-vegetable cuisine.
With its rich Hakka cultural substance and green, distinctive pastoral scenery, Meinong District, which won the title of one of Taiwan, China's "Top Ten Tourist Towns," follows last year's (2012) approval for the establishment of the Meinong "Leisure Agriculture Area" by combining community, restaurant, farm and other resources this year, matching the seasons, to launch four-season itineraries.
Farmers' Association director-general Zhong Qinghui said Meinong has the rural charm of greater Kaohsiung's backyard garden. This year a series of holiday farm experiences has been specially planned, including "Spring Plowing: Seeking Wild Fun," "Summer Cultivation: Reporting Rice Fragrance," "Autumn Harvest: Pulling Radishes" and "Winter Storage: Orange-Honey Country." Each season's itinerary matches that season's agricultural produce. Spring is themed on "wild vegetables," to learn about the rural ecological environment and experience wild-vegetable cuisine; summer is themed on "rice," to learn about the rice industry and experience handmade rice foods; autumn and winter are themed on Meinong's specialties "white jade radish" and "orange-honey fragrant tomato," introducing the richness of winter crops and pickling-culture experiences, plus a year-round papaya hand-picking itinerary, so travelers can experience the joy of the rural seasonal cycle of life.
The spring and summer itineraries are both one-day tours, and registration is now open. "Spring Plowing: Seeking Wild Fun" will take in the lakeside scenery of Zhongzheng Lake, the ecology and gathering guided tour of wild lotus, Hakka cuisine - ban tiao and papaya ban DIY, plus hand-picking papaya to take home, and local "wild vegetable" hammered leaf printing, where visitors can create freely. "Summer Cultivation: Reporting Rice Fragrance" features wave upon wave of golden rice, and besides the farm experience of harvesting papaya and the culinary experience of ban tiao and papaya ban DIY, there is also a summer-limited special itinerary - "floating and playing in the irrigation canal."
The spring and summer itineraries each have one session on May 4 and 5, and June 8 and 9, with 36 places per day, at 800 yuan per person. For related information, please check the activity webpage or call the Meinong District Farmers' Association registration hotline 0975-318-392, Ms. Liu.
The city government's Agriculture Bureau said the Gaoping River basin's agricultural industry and cultural resources are quite rich. This year it has combined rural communities and farmers' groups in Dashu, Meinong, Liugui, Neimen, Yanchao and other areas to successively launch various agricultural experience itineraries, leading tourists deep into the countryside for hiking, fruit picking, DIY, local-flavor meals, farm experiences and more, linking and revitalizing agricultural production, community culture and tourism and leisure, letting city dwellers go deep into farm households and experience rural charm.