The Second Southern Agriculture Forum: Dai Shengtong Discusses Cross-Industry Integration and Professional Specialization in Agriculture
The second "Southern Agriculture Forum" continued its second-day agenda yesterday (the 30th) at the Kaohsiung City Social Education Center. In the morning, the forum's third special topic, "Fully Fired Up: Adding Value to Rural Areas with Cultural Creativity," was held, inviting experts who have worked for many years in fields such as marketing, tourism, leisure agriculture, ecology and design to share their views on cross-disciplinary cooperation between cultural creativity and agriculture, bringing conceptual stimulation and practical examples for the sixth-industry upgrading of micro agribusinesses.
Where can the cultural creativity foundation of the rural leisure industry be found? Yu Wenhong, secretary-general of the Taiwan Leisure Industry association, said it starts from the culture and natural conditions that already exist in rural areas.
"We eat tangyuan because it carries the meaning of reunion in our culture." Red tangyuan are especially festive, but what we usually eat is colored with artificial dyes. Yu Wenhong cited the five-element fermented rice wine tangyuan of Yijia Village in Yilan as an example: the tangyuan of different colors all use natural edible dyes, such as red yeast rice for red and gardenia for yellow, preserving the cultural meaning while also looking appealing. This is a kind of cultural creativity.
He also cited the various rural cultural-creative marketing examples of pomelo as excellent cases. Usually, after the Mid-Autumn Festival, pomelos become very difficult to sell. After harvesting, pomelos also need to sit for a few days before they taste good, so it is impossible to run a pick-and-eat tourist orchard.
However, some operators came up with a pomelo tree adoption model, letting tourists who adopt pomelo trees enter the pomelo orchard in March and April when the fragrance of pomelo flowers fills the air, and in May there is the "pomelo tree wedding dress" landscape of putting individual net houses over individual pomelo trees. After the Mid-Autumn Festival in September, some operators offer pomelo-scented set meals, or let visitors make their own pomelo cartoon bento. Some operators have also developed pomelo-scented pastries and pomelo-scented essential oil.
After introducing the flourishing Taiwan leisure agriculture sector, Yu Wenhong said that agriculture is no longer just agriculture, but has gradually become a lifestyle industry encompassing food, clothing, housing, transportation, education and recreation. In addition to agricultural products, processed goods, farming experiences, ecological tours and homestays, there are also examples such as Cloud Gate Dance Theatre creating dance works inspired by rice fields and performing in the farmland of Chishang. The concept of agri-food education proposed by American sociologist Paul H. Ray is also a current trend and discourse in Taiwan's agricultural innovation.
Taiwan's leisure agriculture is currently developing quite vigorously. In his presentation, Yu Wenhong showed that in 2013 "Japan Agricultural News" reported on Taiwan's leisure agriculture for six consecutive days, as well as related editorials in Malaysia's "Sin Chew Daily." He also said that among tourists from Malaysia to Taiwan, one in every four visits rural areas for agricultural innovation tourism. Taking sustainability as the premise, Yu Wenhong concluded: "Local happiness economics is about building a living environment suitable for tourism and even more suitable for living."