Small farmers join hands to launch a gentle agricultural revolution

Header image / Banzai Hiroaki 

The traditional farmers of Taiwan, China, as I understand them, whether they grow staple crops such as rice or produce other vegetables, fruits, or miscellaneous grain crops, are almost all destined to be a group of hardworking, frugal laborers who never get a share of wealth. Their archetypes are our fathers and uncles.

They know well the hardship of farming, so agriculture has become the least favored industry. Only those who have no choice, or who, whether fortunately or unfortunately, inherit a modest property under the blessing of their ancestors, end up shouldering a hoe and becoming farmers with the greatest reluctance. Thus, with Taiwan, China's agriculture steered by this group of reluctant, unhappy farmers who are not the mainstream, it can only sing the tune of "no rice, only joy."

Yet every one of us eats three meals a day, so there is scarcely a day when we are not bound up with agriculture. In our lifetime we consume the food produced in this joyless farming atmosphere, and it can only be propped up by heavy applications of pesticides and chemical fertilizers; in the end these substances pass through our bodies, and more of them are left to the environment, ultimately affecting this land and the ocean in every possible way.

We can actually be said to be accomplices in this food production chain.

This structure became even more solid after World War II, when factories that had produced chemical weapons switched to producing pesticides and chemical fertilizers and launched the first Green Revolution. For it has locked in the entire political and economic power structure from the advanced Western world to developing countries; governments use it to manage the people, and the people, on their own, cannot escape this dense structure.

Over time, this created inertia or lazy thinking on both sides, assuming that agriculture can only follow this model, and so they only hope to meet the minimum requirement of increasing agricultural output to respond to global population growth without famine. As a result, agriculture has only moved further into a dead end.

Is there a way to break this structure?

Header image / Guo Zhirong

Farmers' markets: a friendly link between production and consumption

Through them we can awaken producers and consumers on both sides, so that both are willing to break free from the framework of habitual thinking; one side is willing to return to the ancestral ways of production that do not harm the land and are friendly to the environment, showing its awakened will; the other side, with the original intention of protecting the ecological environment and caring for producers, can care for both the land and the managers or producers on it?

In recent years, farmers' markets have appeared one after another across Taiwan, China. Regardless of the differences in their products, they are all derivative "products" or ways out born of this awakening. This way out has been blazed as a new path from traditional markets, or, to put it bluntly, through "revolution." It is just that this kind of revolution does not require actual "bloodshed"; at most it means shedding sweat, or it simply also drains a great deal of the participants' heart's blood, and it must rely on supporters and new blood joining in from time to time to keep enthusiasm cycling continuously without being lost.

From the Hoping Farmers' Market, the National Chung Hsing University Farmers' Market, the 248 Farmers' Market, and the Bamboo Dragonfly Market to the Yilan Dayuan Friendly Market, I have watched along the way and deeply applauded the participants. This is a field that shapes a fair society; it is not only a platform for communication between producers and consumers, but also a testing ground that displays the civic literacy of a society.

At the beginning it will not be too perfect either, because when even survival is difficult, how can one ask for too much? Everything must be fought for step by step. As long as it can stand tall under the broad tolerance of civic literacy, it has its own meaning for existence, and it will certainly be able to withstand the inevitable verbal criticism or wavering of confidence, and gradually steady its pace.

Virtuous circular economy: Green Farmers' Home & News&Market

In contrast to the concepts of eating locally and reducing food miles shown by small farmers' markets in various places, the market built through online ordering is another kind of platform.

It can likewise promote ideas such as health, fair trade, and a friendly environment. Even if its food miles may be somewhat higher than those of physical small farmers' markets, as long as strengths are used to offset weaknesses, specialty crops such as Pingtung's mangoes and onions can also be supplied to northern regions that do not produce such products. As long as one looks at the whole picture, the slight flaws do not obscure the overall excellence, and there is no need to quibble over every detail. Among the earlier such platforms were the Xidi Remote Farmers' Market promoted by Feng Xiaofei and others in Zhongliao, Nantou, as well as the rising newcomer introduced in this article, "Green Farmers' Home," promoted by the Pingtung Environmental Protection Union.

Green Farmers is an environmental group that takes environmental protection as its cause. Its willingness to be different and take the initiative to step forward certainly reflects its own distinctive viewpoint. After all, environmental protection and the economy are more often on opposite sides, and now that they are willing to stand together, it naturally attracts attention. I admire that "Green Farmers' Home" stubbornly chooses the side of the "virtuous circular" economy.

"Virtuous circular economy" means supporting friendly production based on grass cultivation, reduced soil and water loss, and safe pesticide use, where fruit farmers invest less environmental cost but produce higher-quality products. "Vicious circular economy," by contrast, is like renting riverbed land to produce crops such as watermelons with large amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers and high environmental costs, because if a watermelon with a market price of several hundred yuan were converted to include environmental costs, it would amount to more than ten thousand yuan.

Opposing planting on riverbed land, though it stands against conventional farmers, also stands with more social citizens.

Green Farmers' Home, "Seven Fruits and Vegetables Every Day" fresh delivery each week

The quality I see in current Pingtung Environmental Protection Union chairman Hong Huixiang's promotion of "Green Farmers' Home" is that he stands on the right side and does the right thing. If one has the chance to spend time with him, one can naturally appreciate his ardent nature and resolute character. It is just hard to bear that such a burden, which should be borne by society as a whole, is carried only by a few people or environmental groups. Would that not be too heavy?

Thinking of this, I cannot help worrying that Green Farmers' rented hillside land and fields, separately planted with mangoes and vegetables, may fall into the predicament of not covering costs because of a lack of dedicated care. For example, the mango orchard insists on not applying the pesticide T33; the first 2 years both failed, and only in the 3rd year were there modest results, yet unexpectedly macaques, squirrels, and rabbits all came to share the harvest. From the viewpoint of benefiting all living beings, this orchard costs little yet has such an effect, and may be worth continuing to cultivate.

As for the Rainbow Farm rented on flat land, two years' rent plus facilities such as automatic sprinklers on the ground also require an investment of several hundred thousand yuan. With costs this high, if the current production and management costs are calculated, it is truly hard to see hope of recovery. Even if professional manpower is insufficient, under the concept of community-supported agriculture that is friendly to biodiversity and hires local a-xiang to create employment opportunities, this value is completely different from that of a watermelon whose environmental cost is ten thousand yuan each, because Rainbow Farm can become a good place for neighboring farmers to gather wild vegetables (black nightshade: black sweet leaf), and a playground for ladybugs, grasshoppers, frogs, and white-breasted waterhens. How should this value be priced?

Onions like these, each one solid, each one translucent, are just as Huixiang wrote: "The larger ones are crisp and sweet enough for cold salads; the medium ones, when stir-fried or boiled in soup (without adding artificial MSG), are simply the freshest, most delicious flavor; the small ones are the best ingredient for braised pork." They deserve your strong support.

I am glad to see such online markets rising one by one, such as "News&Market," introduced in this article. Founded by four founders from the fields of farming, manufacturing, editing and reporting, and internet technology, it is a social enterprise concerned with issues of friendly land use, jointly focusing on Taiwan, China's food self-sufficiency, food safety, rural culture, local cuisine, and green-energy living.

Photo / Haoxun  News&Market focuses on Taiwan, China's agriculture, food, and land-friendly way of life

Friendly markets: a gentle little revolution

This combination of friendly online news and friendly markets can give supporters not only safe food, but also a deeper realization of and awareness about the environment, people, land ethics, and the world. That is a kind of cultivation internalized into spiritual elevation, and it is also a gentle little revolution toward oneself and society.

Therefore, friendly small-farmer markets such as "Green Farmers' Home" and "News&Market" sell not only agricultural products, but also a set of values about attitudes toward life. So whether as a reader, writer, producer, or consumer, let us devote a share of care and together wish success to this gentle little revolution we have joined, so that it may smoothly spread the hopeful seeds of future agriculture and enable friendly news or markets to keep going persistently.