Hsinchu Natural Farming Club Sixth Producer Training Now Enrolling
Enrollment Guidelines for the Sixth Term of Producer Training at the Hsinchu Natural Farming Club
Hello everyone, I am A-Yao, the teaching assistant. After reading the enrollment guidelines, you may already be eager to give it a try, but I hope that before you submit your application form, you will read what I have to say.
Having interviewed and actually mentored quite a few trainees in the past, I have found that many people are determined to become half-time farmers. Perhaps the ambition of becoming a full-time farmer is truly not a resolve one can easily commit to. The Club's purpose is in fact to cultivate producers who make their living from farming, and we always tell those who are determined to become half-time farmers: "We do not require that you must become a full-time producer after one year, but we hope that during this year you learn with the goal of becoming a full-time producer."
Words like these are not easy to understand, so I would like to first talk with you about this matter of half-time farming.
A while ago a book club group came to our field to learn about Shumei Natural Agriculture, and one of them strongly questioned the yields of Shumei Natural Agriculture. Indeed, yield is the most significant problem facing Taiwan's Shumei farmers, but I believe this is not a fault of Shumei Natural Agriculture itself. In fact, many Shumei Natural Agriculture masters in Japan have already achieved yields comparable to conventional farming, while most farmers practicing natural agriculture in Taiwan are new farmers, since older farmers cannot accept the absence of pesticides and fertilizers, so there is little experience. Yet what matters most is that the backup support for conventional farming is far greater than that for natural agriculture.
Not long ago, the Shumei rice-growing master Mr. Hata, who came to Taiwan to hold a sharing session, analyzed for us the differences between modern rice varieties, such as Koshihikari and Sasanishiki, and rice varieties from before the era of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Modern rice varieties, because they need to be harvested by combine harvesters, must grow taller, and once taller they are prone to lodging, so each stalk sets very little grain and relies on tillering density to win out, which makes disease more likely and requires medication. Rice varieties from before the chemical fertilizer era set a great deal of grain per stalk, and if such rice were fed fertilizer, the heads would be too heavy and lodge, which is why they were later changed into varieties that could be fed fertilizer. Ancient rice still had awns on the husk, which could defend against insects and birds on their own, but in modern rice varieties the awns also caused trouble for humans, so they were selected out and replaced by chemical protection.
From the example above we can see that the farm machinery we can buy was made to support conventional farming, and the seeds we can obtain were developed in dependence on pesticides and fertilizers. The agricultural improvement stations, the agricultural research institutes, the nation's resources, and its outstanding talent all serve conventional farming. Designing and making farm machinery, breeding, and developing agricultural techniques are all very important work surrounding agriculture, and many people support it. Yet Taiwan's Shumei farmers, if you open the association's roster, number only about fifty, and for a community like this our backup capacity is completely insufficient.
So, do we need expertise beyond that of producers? Do we need half-time farmers, or even people who are not half farmers at all? In fact we need them very much! BUT! The most important thing is this BUT. We hope that the people we cultivate, even if they later become half-farmer half-X, or even all-X, it does not matter, but this X, we hope, is an X that originates from agriculture, not an X that is some random unrelated combination. A half-X disconnected from agriculture may only be money that supports you. But a half-farmer half-X developed from agriculture as its starting point after a period of wholehearted immersion in farming, each one of these is a key that leads our community to grow strong!
There are two kinds of half-time farming aspirations that we encounter most often:
"I have a piece of land, and I hope that in my spare time after work (or in retirement), I can grow food for myself to eat."
This is the half-time farming aspiration we encounter most often.
If you wish to treat farming as a kind of leisure, or a leisurely retirement life, we very much welcome you to take part in our farming. You can contact us at any time and arrange a time with us to come volunteer, learning while doing. However, as for the role of "trainee," the Club provides various kinds of subsidies, so we also hope that trainees devote themselves to learning the matter of farming, and can treat farming as a profession rather than leisure, and we hope that only more determined people come to apply as our trainees.
"I think the biggest problem facing friendly agriculture is sales and promotion. I hope I will not become a producer, but rather a person who sells friendly agricultural products." Although most do not state it explicitly, one can vaguely sense that people with such thoughts are the second most common half-time farming aspiration we encounter.
Yes, we also need sales talent. However, the matter of sales is in fact far more delicate and professional than one might imagine. To be able to communicate effectively with consumers, to give systematic feedback to producers, to improve the vegetable delivery process, to solve logistics and preservation problems, and to perfect error-free order management and shipping and receiving management, and so on, with such professionalism, we are very much in need. If you have such expertise, or are determined to move toward such expertise, and hope to do this by participating in agricultural production yourself and starting from the producer's perspective, then you are undoubtedly the talent we need. However, if having such a half-time farming aspiration is simply because you feel that going down to the field to grow vegetables is more arduous, then, to say something a little unpleasant, you may be thinking of sales as too easy and too beautiful.
Of course, what we need most right now is still producers who can devote themselves wholeheartedly to farming, because agriculture is ultimately centered on producers. Without a center to the agriculture, no matter how many X's are on the periphery, it is all a castle in the sand–merely an illusion. I hope everyone can understand that the Hsinchu Natural Farming Club, as a group, exists for producers!
Hsinchu Natural Farming Teaching Assistant / A-Yao
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Enrollment Guidelines for the Sixth Term of Producer Training at the Hsinchu Natural Farming Club