Green Round-Island Tour, Nan'ao Station: A Journey for Our Kids
Second Stop on the Island Tour: Nan'ao, Yilan (Nan'ao Natural Farm)
On the green island tour, we arrive at Nan'ao Natural Farm.
A simple farmhouse, with no fancy decorations, only the ordinary and the plain, yet it has a kind of harmony with nature. I never expected this to be a place that would open my eyes, growing sugarcane, garlic, cherry trees, and buttonbush, and getting to know many animals.
On 12 jia of land, when work gets tiring you can enjoy the beauty of the natural scenery. I really love the simple life here. After experiencing the work-exchange holiday at Nan'ao Natural Farm, I want to share with everyone the little details of this place.
Farming Is a Discipline: A Dialogue with Nature
I think the best thing of all was the part about having a dialogue with the land, which let us get to know the land anew and have an intimate connection with her, and also made us deeply understand that farming really is a discipline. You have to understand the terrain, wind direction, topography, and seasonal changes; many details are closely tied to the fate of the crops.
Among them, what I remember most is getting to know the two most commonly seen plants: beggarticks (known in Taiwanese as "qia-cha-bo"), also called hairy beggarticks, and then tropical ageratum. What connection do these two plants have with the land? If you see a lot of beggarticks on a field, it means the plants are relatively dry, while tropical ageratum belongs more to paddy field cultivation.
Really, after hearing this I found it amazing that you can discover so many things from such small matters. This is also a nature lesson that I feel was especially special to learn.
Farming and Cherry-Blossom Viewing: A Moving Experience from the Land
I still remember when I first arrived, "Qingshan Ju" gifted 200 cherry saplings, and it happened to be cherry-planting time. A-Jiang took us to plant them in the farmland. He said: we can farm and also enjoy the cherry blossoms, what a wonderful thing that is.
Meeting the cherry trees for the first time, I saw they looked like a slender sapling, bare and completely ordinary, just a very ordinary little tree. When planting, we all had to gently say, "You have to do your best!" hoping this place can give you great nutrients and that you live well, with every day full of expectation and hope.
Later, because I was busy with farm work, I hardly paid any attention to them, until one day I saw the branches beginning to sprout, covered in lush green leaves. At that moment I was truly moved inside, so much that I nearly cried, a sense of accomplishment, that kind of joy, so hard to put into words, and it was this single moment that froze in my heart.
Natural Farming: Restoring Nature's Instinct
Natural farming has existed from ancient times to the present. In recent decades, because of the convenience of pesticides and fertilizers, we have gradually drifted away from natural farming. Our land should also be a very important part in the future. Understanding the importance of treating the land well: if we use chemical fertilization, the land will need a longer time to recover, and because of long-term chemical and pesticide combinations, our seeds have forgotten their instinct, because of too much pampering, but what is the end result? They have lost their natural instinct, and if there are no pesticides or fertilizers, they simply cannot grow well.
But in fact, with this kind of model, we are killing ourselves with poison, a kind of long-term slow suicide. Natural farming is about going through nature's selection, following natural laws, to cultivate healthier food. This kind of farming needs a very long time, because it insists on no fertilization and no pesticide spraying. Many people will think this is the behavior of madmen, but according to statistics, our vegetables compared with the past have nutritional value reduced by a lot compared with 30 years ago. After coming to this stop, I feel that many things are worth our looking at from afar, rather than for short-term gain.
The Changes Brought by Contract Farming and Contracted Cultivation
Simply put, the words "the vegetables Mom grows, Dad could not possibly want to spray fertilizer on" echo in my heart. Going down to the field to plant yourself, no need for so many labels and certifications, learning firsthand through the farming experience, having intimate contact with nature, I deeply feel that a good piece of land is not something you talk about with your mouth, but something you absolutely must experience for yourself.
One last sentence to share and encourage each other with, a sentence I deeply felt in my work: "I would rather my body be dirty than the land be ruined."
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