Quitting a Career for Farming Special 6: A Single Seed in the Land of Beans Is the Hope of Agriculture
Text by Chen Shu-ting, photos by Huang Shih-ze
From driving a large farm machine worth three or four million yuan and cultivating two or three hundred jia year after year as a custom-farming operator, to carrying a hoe himself and squatting in a field ditch to patch the holes dug by rats as a small farmer, Su Jung-tsan spent a full twenty-five years making the change.
This farmer from Tainan lived through the decline of Taiwan's traditional agriculture, found his way out of the maze of using chemical fertilizers and pesticides to force high yields, and founded "Dou Zhi Xiang" (Land of Beans), seeking "the right crop for the right place" in Taiwan's own non-genetically modified crops and developing and designing machinery suited to small farmers, to solve the shortage of rural labor.
Held in the palm of a hand, a single small bean seems utterly insignificant, but in Su Jung-tsan's eyes, neither sesame nor mung bean is a small matter. What he plants is not just miscellaneous grains; it is more good seeds preserved for Taiwan, and hope kept for the food of the future.
(Excerpted from the new book published by Guo Li Culture in May, "Fields and Trees, Self-Sufficiency")
"Fields and Trees, Self-Sufficiency"
This book interviews 10 couples who "left their careers for farming," leaving the city and stable jobs behind so that the whole family could come to the countryside and live off their own hands and the land. Farming is no longer something to do "after I retire"! Their farming methods are friendly to the land: through their own hands and labor, they produce healthy food themselves, change what the dinner table looks like, and let food become a force for changing society. These 10 creative practices of farm life are not only a longing for closeness to the land and rural life, but also a gentle yet firm revolution, symbolizing a deep shift in Taiwan's social values. They are revolutionaries in the fields.
For more content, please refer to "Fields and Trees, Self-Sufficiency"
(http://www.books.com.tw/exep/activity/activity.php?id=0000051175&sid=0000051175&page=1)