How Sprout Farming Launched Zheng Hanrui's Entrepreneurial Journey

Q: What work and educational background did you have before you started farming?

Actually, right up until the end of 2009, I had never imagined that I would start farming.

In university I majored in finance, and after graduation I worked in the business management field the whole time, starting with the launch of the eco-friendly cleaner brand "Orange House," then working in marketing consulting services for Asian retailers, then entering a foreign bank as a management trainee, and later serving as a strategy development manager, responsible for integrated business for high-net-worth clients across the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong, China. Just like many friends around me, I began applying for business management master's programs abroad, and was fortunate enough to be admitted to the MIT Sloan School of Management in the United States.

However, inspired by my experience with "Orange House," I gradually became convinced that to make our lives and environment better, there need to be brands that are truly trustworthy, have professional backgrounds, and bear social responsibility, so that good products can slowly improve our lives.

For this reason, I had always wanted to start a business. When I discovered that what Green Vine wanted to do was exactly what I wanted to do, I decided to stay and start farming.

Q: Why did you choose to farm? What made you decide?

Because I saw an opportunity to make a change, and we believe we can contribute something.

Because both of my parents are people of agriculture - Professor Zheng Zhengyong and Dr. Lin Bixia of the Department of Horticulture at National Taiwan University. They worked hard for decades, hoping that Taiwan's agriculture could move closer to global trends. However, many of their ideas and techniques still lacked a channel to be put into practice, and much of their professional knowledge and unique insight about food ingredients, health, and environmental protection should be made known to more people. These things cannot simply disappear.

The truly decisive factor was that two like-minded friends, my former classmates in finance at National Taiwan University, Liao Yiwen and Xu Weizhe, joined in. Yiwen said that the right things need someone to do them, and Weizhe said that our efforts would definitely let consumers eat our sprouts today and have better health tomorrow. I thought starting a business with them would be very interesting, and we shared the same ideas

Q: Regarding agriculture and the farming life, please talk about a person or a passage that inspired you?

The famous astronomer Carl Sagan once said: "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."

My father told me that this is what he has been doing his whole life. To me that is a great inspiration, and I hope this is also what Green Vine is doing.

Q: What is the greatest inspiration and reward that engaging in agricultural production has brought you?

The greatest inspiration and reward is that "happiness really can be a little simpler." In my past work, there was a kind of rigid feeling - that happiness should come from outstanding work performance, job promotions and salary, or a whole week's vacation abroad.

But now, every time I see the life bursting out after the seeds sprout, every time I hear customers praise Green Vine sprouts, every time when selling I send sprouts full of enzymes and nutrition to customers' dining tables, every time I raise "a somewhat deeper agricultural question" and see my parents smile, every time Green Vine solves one problem after another through teamwork, every time a few more people like us on Facebook, I feel happiness.

Also, whether everyone has worked hard for several weeks and gathers for a meal with Green Vine sprouts; or sitting in the back seat of the refrigerated truck heading to the farm, thereby saving on return tickets and fuel money - these are actually very simple joys!

In fact, over the past year, the mistakes I have made and the setbacks I have suffered have been even greater than what I accumulated over the previous five years of work, but these accumulated small joys let me feel that each day is lived fully and meaningfully.

Q: If other young people choose to start farming, and face worry, doubt, or strange looks from family and classmates, how would you suggest they first prepare themselves mentally and in related ways?

1. Watch Steve Jobs' speech at Stanford University one more time
2. Watch the movie "3 Idiots" one more time
3. Spend three days continuously asking yourself - what on earth is most important to you? Because only you can answer this question

Q: What is your vision for Taiwan's future agriculture?

When miners go mining, they bring a canary in with them, because canaries are very sensitive to gas. If they find the canary becoming very restless or even chirping wildly, the miners can evacuate early to avoid danger to their lives. In the documentary "Sustainable Table," it is said that because of long-term exposure to environments where pesticides are used, farmers are the canaries of modern society.

Our vision for Taiwan's future agriculture is that farmers will no longer be canaries, but spring swallows. When you see farmers, you see hope.

This hope is that farmers have professional production and a life free from worry, and I also hope that Taiwan's land and industrial policies can be friendly to the establishment of agricultural enterprises. Agriculture is an industry that requires long-term and large amounts of resource investment, and from research to marketing it actually requires specialized division of labor.

We imagine that if more agricultural enterprises with social responsibility can be established, the deliciousness and health in the bowls of Taiwan's consumers will be different in the future.

Q: Please also talk about your expectations for News&Market?

I hope News&Market can gather more people with similar ideals, as well as more young people who want to devote themselves to agriculture, and can spark more different ideas through this platform.

I hope that more professional information can be gathered here, reducing the information asymmetry between consumers and agricultural producers, and I also hope to come into contact with more developments in world agriculture on this platform, as well as the future feasibility of Taiwan's agriculture.