Stories of Taiwan's Good Fields: A Tribute to Passionate Farmers
Taiwan's Good Fields - together let's make Taiwan sweeter! And a tribute to passionate farmers.
In July 2011, during Yahoo! Kimo's "Youth Micro-Revolution" campaign, a poll was held on "the unsung hero you most want to thank." When the results were revealed, "farmers" won by an overwhelming landslide of 5,140 votes as the unsung hero netizens felt most deserved thanks yet was most easily overlooked.
Indeed! Without farmers toiling and sweating over the soil, where would our food come from? Without farmers guarding Taiwan, where would the beautiful fertile fields be? But Taiwan's farmers truly have it hard! They face severe aging of the workforce, an average income lower than the minimum basic wage, and even the uncertain risk of their farmland being expropriated.
3 key numbers to help you understand Taiwan's farmers
65 years old -
According to Council of Agriculture statistics, Taiwan's farming population is concentrated among those over 65; the farming population aged 25 to 39 combined is not as large as that over 65, and the average age of rice farmers is close to 70.
NT$20,000 -
According to surveys, the average annual income of Taiwan's farmers is NT$220,000 to NT$240,000, meaning a monthly income of less than NT$20,000, not even reaching the minimum basic wage stipulated by the Labor Standards Act. After deducting costs for seedlings, pesticides, fertilizers and farm machinery, a farmer's hourly wage sometimes cannot even buy a rice ball.
30% -
Of the price of a bag of rice, 70% of the cost may be taken by rice mills, middlemen and retailers, while rice farmers may earn less than 30%.
Even though farming has so many hardships that outsiders cannot appreciate, many farmers in Taiwan remain content with their lot. Not only do they live by farming, they also hope to improve agriculture's many problems through cultivation, striving to create land where the next generation can eat safely and healthily!
Dream Farmers, Taiwan's Pioneers
[Lunshan Camellia Oil: A Gift from Heaven Grown on Barren Land]
Take the Lunshan tribe in Hualien, where only the elderly and children remain; the elderly Bunun farmers still stoop on the slopes tending each camellia tree and picking tea seeds to produce camellia seed oil, because their greatest wish is—-to develop stable agriculture in the tribe so that the young adults who have scattered elsewhere seeking work can come home and settle deep roots in their own culture and on their own land.
[Nan'ao Natural Farm: Let's Support "Future Farmers" Together!]
In Nan'ao, Yilan, three men originally working in technology, design and social movements - A-Jiang, Shih-tsung and Chao-chung - gave up stable incomes and came to Nan'ao to learn rice farming and become farmers, in order to revive the gradually disappearing farmland. They insist on natural farming that returns the land to sustainable purity, with no toxins, no pesticides and no fertilizers, coexisting with weeds. They also bring out the passion of a new generation of farmers, calling on everyone to come to the fields and experience it, rekindling city dwellers' enthusiasm for agriculture and the land.
[Wheat Field Rhapsody: Taiwan Wheat Makes Taiwan Bread]
In view of Taiwan's ever-lower food self-sufficiency rate, and the fact that Taiwanese love bread yet flour is 100% imported, a group of brave farmers joined Shih Ming-huang, founder of Wish Bread, in carrying out the "Wheat Field Rhapsody" project, reviving around the island the wheat fields Taiwan once had. Not only do they want wheat to take root in Taiwan's soil, they also want to use Taiwan wheat to make authentic bread and noodles!
The Taiwan's Good Fields Movement Is Yahoo! Kimo's Commitment
How could we not stand firmly behind these passionate Taiwanese warriors?!
After Yahoo! Kimo's 2008 "Four Seasons Local Food" campaign encouraged everyone to eat locally grown, in-season fruits and vegetables, in 2011 it further launched the "Taiwan's Good Fields Movement," encouraging netizens to pre-order agricultural produce or adopt a rice paddy or a fruit tree, improving farmers' difficulty in selling, giving them guaranteed income in advance, and at the same time enabling them to farm in a further natural and pure way, making Taiwan's land and agriculture cleaner and more sustainable.
This time, let's invite these three groups of passionate farmers - "Lunshan Tribe," "Nan'ao Natural Farm" and "Wheat Field Rhapsody" - to be the pioneers, and through their hands and through our pre-orders and adoptions, create lasting change for the land and for Taiwan together!
Yahoo! Kimo invites you to stand with farmers and nurture good fields! Let Taiwan's land grow sweeter and sweeter!
Learn more about the Taiwan's Good Fields Movement,go now>>http://tw.