How to Rescue Damaged Wheat? Haonongzhuang You Episode 2 Begins the Healing Journey

Lead image/ Farmer Zhuang Jinxing's mother and Director Shi

Introduction: The Good Farmer Grand Tour

Promoting the cultivation of "local wheat" in Taiwan, China was originally a thankless task that few in any sector favored, but Mr. Shi Minghuang (whom the farmers all call "Director Shi"), founder of "Xi Yuan Wheat," and his contract-farming partners accomplished the impossible mission of reviving local wheat within these five years, and next year they hope output can reach 120 metric tons. Although this is only "one ten-thousandth" of imported flour, it already carries landmark significance.

To expand the cultivation of local coarse grains, this year the Xi Yuan Wheat team further formed the "Soybean Special Agent Team," contracting with farmers for seven hectares of black beans and five hectares of soybeans, grown in an environmentally friendly way, in the hope of opening a new chapter in the history of coarse grain cultivation.

To let farmers encourage and recharge one another, Director Shi held the "Good Farmer Grand Tour" round-island trip for the second consecutive year. This tour group numbered about thirty people, with an average age over fifty, on a three-day journey that visited no scenic spots, but instead called on farmers around the island growing wheat and soybeans, observing different field environments, observing crops, and exchanging cultivation experience and techniques with one another.

This round-island visit to production sites included Miaoli Yuanli, Taichung Daya, Chiayi Dongshi, Tainan Houbi, Xuejia, Taitung Chishang, Hualien Yuli and others, also taking the opportunity to inspect fields hit by a rare heavy winter rain in November of this year. After a full circuit of the island, it was found that wheat and soybean fields everywhere could not escape the devastation of days of heavy rain; the originally estimated 65 hectares of harvested area was estimated to be only 50 hectares left after the rain, and seeing one another's situation, the farmers all cheered one another on, further stirring up their fighting spirit to keep working hard.

NewsMarket took part in the entire "Good Farmer Grand Tour" round-island trip, recording the farmers' learning process, and plans to publish it as a series of four articles. This article is the first in the series, recording the winter of 2011, as farmers toured wheat field scenes across Taiwan, China.

First Stop: Taichung Daya Wheat Fields: Flooded Wheat Won't Grow Tall