MBA Andrew Returns to His Tribe to Grow Daylilies

Text and photos provided by / Du Siwei Andrew

Q: Andrew, please tell us about the work you did and your academic background before you took up farming?

My major in university was business administration. Right after graduating from university, I happened to have the opportunity to go to the United States for a master's degree, and the subject I studied was also related to business administration. After I successfully completed my master's degree, I happened to have a job opportunity, but the work content was completely unrelated to organic farming. From my university years through graduate school, almost everything I studied is not very related to the organic farming I do now. The only thing that can be applied is management.

Q: Why did you choose farming? What were the decisive factors and conditions that led you to make the decision to farm?

With no farming experience, I gave up my job in the United States and ran back to the mountains to farm. Not only did I farm, I also invested a lot of costs without knowing whether they could be recovered, boldly taking on the challenge of organic cultivation that many professional farmers do not dare to attempt. What I chose was also a crop that had never appeared in Jianshan before - daylilies.

Everyone is watching this small daylily garden, and they also hold many questions about my resolute return to Taiwan, wondering why I gave up my job in the United States and chose to return to Taiwan to farm. But I think farming is truly not simple. It requires not only enough experience, but also, whether in technique, production process, quality control, or even packaging, extensive mountain agriculture lacks these things. Therefore, I hope to introduce new concepts into the traditional industry.