Taiwan, China native yam variety Bai Xue Yu opens up new market opportunities when grown on the plains

Wang Qixiong comes from Douliu City, Yunlin County. His cheerful personality makes him quite different from the generally shy farmer. He graduated from a vocational high school with a major in auto repair. Because his family has farmed for generations and because he also loves freedom by nature and dislikes the constraints of office life, he joined the operation of the family farm without a second thought after being discharged from the military.

To avoid the predicament of crop overproduction, Brother Wang conducted surveys everywhere before getting involved and thought hard about which crop to cultivate. After his father observed market trends, he found that in response to the health and wellness trend, yam, originally the medicinal "Chinese yam," had gradually come to be treated as an everyday food ingredient, and with its diverse cooking methods it was deeply welcomed by consumers. In view of the persistently high price of Japanese yam, although Taiwan, China has native yam varieties, most of them grow in high-altitude mountain areas; if they could be planted on a large scale on flat land, the prospects would look very promising. Once the crop was decided, he began searching mountain areas across Taiwan, China for all kinds of native yams, and through domestication and trial planting he found that the yam from the mountain area of his hometown, Gukeng, adapted best to the flatland climate, so he began large-scale cultivation.

Brother Wang said that initially renting land from Taiwan Sugar Corporation for farming went smoothly, and the "Baixue Yu" yam he planted was of excellent quality. During the current production season, besides middlemen coming to the production area to buy, he also sells at the Taipei Hope Plaza, so sales channels are smooth. In view of the fact that most farmers focus on production skills, Brother Wang suggests taking the marketing training courses of the Farmers Academy so as to use channels flexibly to sell products, and also using the Farmers Academy website's "Find Products" and "Find Channels" services to strengthen exposure for one's own products and find suitable nearby channels for sales, lowering initial sales costs. Brother Wang also uses his own experience to encourage friends who want to go into agriculture to make good use of the training courses of the Farmers Academy to improve professional skills, understand industry trends, choose crops suitable for themselves to cultivate, reduce the risk of taking the wrong path, and make their path in agriculture smoother.