Farmer Academy Evaluation Team Experiences the Fresh Flavors of Local Produce

To help trainees with marketing, the Council of Agriculture provides "Find a Channel" and "Find a Product" functions on the Farmer Academy website, matching trainees' products for listing on major sales channels. To increase channel operators' willingness to stock trainees' products, the Farmer Academy website brought together on August 29 the Zhenqing Food Hall and Taiwan Flavor Trading Platform, along with staff from the Council of Agriculture and the agricultural research and extension stations of Taoyuan and Miaoli, to visit the farms of three farmers, Deng Wen-hsiung, Liu Chin-chih and Wu Cheng-fu, so that through this event channel operators could learn on site about the trainees' current farm operations and marketing processes.

Deng Wen-hsiung's Pear Orchard, Winner of the Shennong Award

Deng Wen-hsiung's pear orchard is located in the coastal mountains of Toufen, Miaoli, where it is bathed year-round in sea breezes and nourished by salt mist, supplying the pear trees with abundant trace elements, minerals and antioxidant compounds, which produce pears of a uniquely distinctive flavor that, unlike ordinary pears, do not easily turn brown after being cut open; the orchard is managed by the grass-growing method, adjusting the soil's phosphorus-to-nitrogen ratio according to the growth conditions of the pear trees rather than blindly applying fertilizer and pesticides as in conventional farming, and using molasses to supply the pear trees with nutrients.

Wen-hsiung said he had followed his father in growing pears since childhood, and had once worked at a Japanese company; tired of the scheming in the workplace, and because his father had expressed a wish to retire, he switched to farming. Wen-hsiung is devoted to researching and breeding pears, and his dedication to and high quality in pear cultivation even earned him the honor of the Shennong Award. Through word of mouth, even political and business celebrities specifically ask for his pears as gifts.

In addition, Wen-hsiung also used his marketing experience from working at a Japanese company to successfully get his pears into high-end department store supermarkets such as Taipei 101. Wen-hsiung said: "People often use 'bitter is the lotus seed's heart, sour is the pear's core' to describe the sourness of a pear's core, but I can guarantee with my hand on my chest that my pears are not only sweet and juicy, but even the core is very small!" Wen-hsiung's pears have also obtained both GAP (Good Agricultural Practice) and traceability certification, ensuring that consumers can enjoy them with peace of mind.

During this place-of-origin visit, the trainees' high-quality agricultural products and strict farm management greatly impressed the participating channel operators, who vied with one another to invite the trainees' products for listing. The channel operators said that the product development process is cumbersome and time-consuming, and that the assistance of the Farmer Academy website reduces the time needed to develop products. Moreover, the "Find a Product" listings published on the Farmer Academy website are all high-quality agricultural products that have obtained safety labels and passed pesticide residue testing. In the future, the Farmer Academy website will continue to hold place-of-origin visits, and channel operators are welcome to contact the Farmer Academy website to work together for Taiwan's agriculture and to market local high-quality agricultural products.