Taiwan, China's Wheat Drifting Through the World: Hoping the Fragrance of Wheat Returns to the Fields

Photography / Munch

Golden wheat under the setting sun: a declining crop, or the hope of the future?

In Taiwan, China, wheat is a crop with a checkered fate. The difficulty is not that it is hard to grow, but that the times have been turbulent, and so it has risen and fallen through a century of upheaval.

Taiwan, China is a wheat-growing land. As early as when the ancestors crossed the sea, they brought wheat seeds with them to plant, and by the Yuan dynasty there were already records of "growing wheat in Pinghu (Penghu)." By the early Qing dynasty, large numbers of migrants arrived in Taiwan, and with irrigation canals not yet widespread, wheat, suited to dryland farming, became a winter staple crop.

The prevalence of wheat can be seen in many traditional old houses, where wheat straw is found within earthen walls framed with bamboo strips and covered with mud and rice straw. It is also reflected in the long-standing "begging for the turtle" faith, in which the widely used flour turtles offered to the gods in worship across many places reflect the prevalence of wheat in early Taiwan. Even the Qing dynasty book "Records of the Raw and Cooked Barbarians of Taiwan" records that the Pingpu people grew wheat as an important food.

By the late Qing dynasty, as irrigation canals were gradually opened and the farming and reclamation system matured, rice began to be planted in large quantities, while wheat, sweet potato, and corn became secondary foods, and the area planted with wheat began to shrink. In the early period of Japanese rule, large numbers of Japanese troops and civilians moved in, and faced with food shortages, wheat cultivation was encouraged as a main secondary food, with varieties such as "Shinjinko" and "Saitama" introduced from Japan to improve Taiwan's wheat varieties.

Until the mid-period of Japanese rule, as reservoirs, canals, and other water facilities became increasingly complete, farmland changed from the early "sky-watching fields" that depended on rain into "rotation fields" with stored irrigation water. The Japanese government carried out a planned sugar-and-rice economy, planting large amounts of sugarcane and rice, and wheat became a miscellaneous grain crop that farming families rotated on their own in winter.

From the flour aid-to-Taiwan program to the wheat import policy, the government propped up Taiwan's wheat processing industry, yet accelerated the disappearance of wheat cultivation.

After the Nationalist government came to Taiwan, more than 2 million troops and civilians poured in, food was severely lacking, and the government once again encouraged wheat growing. At that time, Taiwan's wheat-growing area reached more than 20,000 hectares, with annual output of about 25,000-plus metric tons. In the 1950s, the US flour aid-to-Taiwan program began, solving Taiwan's food problem while also promoting wheat-flour food culture and propping up Taiwan's flour processing industry.

In 1960, US aid ended, and the government opened up flour imports as well as wheat imports for processing. Low-priced international competition dealt a severe blow to the space for wheat cultivation in Taiwan. Apart from the small amount of wheat that farmers kept seed for and grew themselves, only contract growing bought by wineries for liquor production remained. It was not until 1995, when the wheat price-support purchasing policy was abolished, that wheat headed toward its end. Even after the Taichung Agricultural Improvement Station released the bred variety "Taichung No. 34" wheat in 1992, wheat breeding research and development came to a halt, formally declaring that the wheat crop had almost completely ceased to be grown and had disappeared in Taiwan.

Is wheat dead?

In just 20 years, Taiwan wheat, which had once shone in Taiwan, vanished in an instant. For many of the younger generation, they even believe Taiwan does not produce wheat, and that wheat is a foreign crop.

The Daya wheat production and marketing group provides wheat seed for Kinmen to grow. Taiwan produces it in winter, then in spring it is handed to Kinmen to plant, and then bought by the winery to make liquor.

In Daya, Taichung, an area that has continued to grow Taiwan wheat works under contract with the Daya Farmers' Association and the Kinmen Winery, producing wheat seed to be handed to Kinmen for planting. Local farmer Zhang Wenyan is the head of the wheat production and marketing group and gathers farming friends into a team to grow wheat. He says wheat suits a dry, cold climate, and central Taiwan is suitable for growing it because it grows in winter, has few pests and diseases, and therefore does not need pesticide spraying.

The Daya Wheat Festival, held for nearly ten years, draws tens of thousands of visitors with Taiwan's distinctive golden wheat field scenery.

Daya's wheat growing has made it one of the few remaining wheat townships in Taiwan. Local ceramic artist Zhao Shengjie saw the beauty of the wheat township. He says many friends praise the beauty of golden wheat fields abroad, and he thought that since his hometown Daya also has wheat fields, why not promote it as a rural image? So he began introducing friends to see the wheat fields in Daya, and in 2004 even held the first Wheat Culture Festival, using wheat as the locomotive driving local community building.

To this day, the Daya Wheat Festival has become an important rural characteristic festival, attracting many people to come view the golden wheat fields, so that the memory of wheat growing in Taiwan will not be interrupted.

Daya Township's Zhao Shengjie preserves the memory of Taiwan's wheat growing through the Wheat Culture Festival, but Fangyuan Township's Shi Minghuang has an even greater ambition: he hopes to restore Taiwan's wheat-growing skills.

Rice and wheat-flour foods are both staples in life in Taiwan, but rice production is in surplus, while wheat is entirely dependent on imports.

If a crop attracts no interest in a country, then with no demand and no incentive for export, it naturally fades from history and no one grows it. But wheat is not something no one cares about. Taiwan originally had demand for wheat-flour foods, and with the influence of European and American food culture, Taiwan's wheat imports today are about 1 million metric tons per year, while annual rice demand is 1.5 million metric tons. Demand for wheat is closing in on rice, and rice foods and wheat-flour foods have become important staples in Taiwan.

Despite high demand for wheat, Taiwan is a place that does not produce wheat. Not producing does not mean it cannot be grown; it means there was simply no plan to grow it. At present, wheat is grown in Taiwan only in two places, Daya and Xuejia, and the wheat is all contract-grown with the Kinmen Winery. It is harvested in March as seed, moved to Kinmen for planting, and then harvested to serve as the liquor starter for making liquor, so there is Taiwan wheat aroma in sorghum liquor.

Kinmen obtains wheat seed from Taiwan and grows wheat on about 1,700-plus hectares, all of it used for making liquor; for use as food, the varieties must be improved.

In recent years, Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor Inc. has imported sorghum and wheat from China. The Taiwanese and Kinmen farming friends who originally sustained the contract growing have in fact faced the crisis of contract termination to some degree. A few years ago, for Kinmen's contracted sorghum, the company planned to procure it all from China, triggering a storm of protests from Kinmen farmers. In the end, a planted area symbolizing protection of farmers was retained and has been maintained to this day.

Shi Minghuang, general manager of Xiyuan Bakery Workshop, has long used flour to make bread and knows well the price and quality of flour. For several years he kept thinking: why does Taiwan have such a high need for wheat, yet cannot produce it itself?

He considered wheat's international trade not only from the angle of price, but also from the perspective of rural production, looking at the rural value of wheat production.

In 2007, Australia suffered a severe drought and international wheat prices soared, revealing that under a food crisis, a country dependent on imported crops faces crisis and risk. By then it was no longer a question of high prices, but that with producing countries banning exports, Taiwan would face a crisis of flour shortage.

If Taiwan had no flour, what a huge storm that would be!

Shi Minghuang opened a bakery, producing and selling bread, providing self-reliant work for friends in need of help, and starting from there, he began pursuing his wheat field rhapsody.

Shi Minghuang is not a farmer. He merely opened a bakery workshop in the countryside and sells bread in the countryside. It is not that it is easy to make money there, but that he has a group of disadvantaged employees who cannot leave their hometown too far away and need help, so he is in the countryside. As for growing wheat, perhaps one third is because he wonders why Taiwan cannot produce the raw material for wheat, and the other two thirds is because he wonders why Taiwan's farmers cannot make money from wheat.

In 2007, he first began his wheat field rhapsody. He visited Daya farmer Zhang Wenyan, contract-grew one hectare of wheat, recorded and observed the process of wheat growth, and obtained seed for promotion. In 2008, he actually planted and managed it nearby on farmland in Citong, Yunlin, truly experiencing the problems of wheat growth, while also seeking out experts and scholars to ask about wheat knowledge: which kind suits Taiwan? Which kind suits flour making?

Next he sought farming friends, hoping to expand the planted area. In 2009, farming friends in Yuanli, Miaoli, actively inquired about wheat cultivation. After several rounds of discussion, Shi Minghuang used contract growing to open the first step in wheat cultivation, taking up the link in Taiwan wheat's hundred-year history. Beyond the winery contract growing, there were finally farmers willing to grow wheat.

Rural dreamer Shi Minghuang not only promotes wheat cultivation, but also wants to promote a wheat field music festival, letting musical notes leap over the waves of wheat.

By 2010, Shi Minghuang launched the "Great Flour God Plan," promoting wheat growing across the whole island, from Yilan in the north, to Hengchun in the south, to Yuli in the east, contract-growing wheat all over Taiwan, intending to show the map of Taiwan wheat in its golden age and let everyone know that Taiwan can indeed grow wheat in various places.

Shi Minghuang, who seems like a dreamer, is in fact calculating carefully at every step. With great perseverance he travels north and south, recording and understanding the wheat field conditions in each area, and also carefully estimating the economic costs and profits from crop to finished product. Behind his wildly confident words is an abundance of effort unknown to others. In the end one discovers that his calculations are not entirely for himself, but for Taiwan's agriculture.

From the very beginning of promoting wheat, Shi Minghuang did not look at it from the angle of a single crop. He emphasizes the importance of rural crop rotation. Summer rice and winter wheat is the original face of the Taiwanese countryside and has the advantage of changing the soil's conditions. He says that for Taiwan to produce wheat, one cannot calculate only from import prices; one must think about the importance of local farming and about being prepared for food shortages.

His wheat field rhapsody campaign, after widespread media reporting, made the government take action, beginning to hold demonstrations and lectures, even finding field areas to start demonstration planting, and even saying it would encourage promotion through the "small landlord, large tenant farmer" model. But declarations are just declarations, and actual policy and action were completely lacking. The root of the problem is that the government simply does not dare promote the crop, because if the government promotes it, that means the government must step forward to buy it.

Shi Minghuang understood the government's snail's pace all too well. From the start he did not rely on the government, and he also hoped to find hope for Taiwan wheat under the market economy.


The wheat inspection group formed by wheat farmers from various places, led by Shi Minghuang, spent three days touring Taiwan for exchange, encouraging one another and learning from each other, becoming a civil pioneer in reviving Taiwan's wheat farming.

In 2011, before the island-wide contract-grown wheat harvest, he formed a wheat inspection group, spending three days taking wheat farmers to visit wheat fields in various places. He hoped the wheat farmers could see how others grow it and also exchange information with one another. As the inaugural group of Taiwan's wheat field revival movement, every farming friend is an important historical figure.

In March 2011, the contract wheat fields were harvested one after another. Across more than ten field areas from north to south, under contract for 25 hectares, about 50 metric tons of wheat were harvested. Shi Minghuang began the busy work of processing and making noodles, wheat flour, and other products, then asked the Taichung Hongxing Flour Mill to grind 13 metric tons of wheat from Xuejia, Tainan. This counts as a historical moment: Taiwan does not lack imported flour, but using authentically Taiwanese-grown wheat and grinding it into flour had been interrupted for nearly 50 years.

Shi Minghuang's dream caught fire, attracting many friends to help with all their strength. Taichung Hongxing Flour Mill assisted with the milling, mass-producing flour ground from Taiwan wheat after an interruption of fifty years, writing an important piece of history.

Flour mill manager Huang Beichen says the processing plant specializes in imported wheat, and grinding Taiwan wheat had indeed been interrupted for a very long time. At the factory's mechanical rate, 13 metric tons is truly very little, and cleaning the lines and starting up the milling are not cost-effective, but seeing Shi Minghuang's sincerity, he was so moved that he could not refuse to help. Thus White Dolphin Taiwan Flour came onto the market. After inspection, Taiwan wheat not only has a high flour extraction rate; American wheat has an extraction rate of 73 percent, while Taiwan wheat exceeds 78 percent. More importantly, its degree of freshness absolutely beats imported wheat.

But the story is not over yet. Growing wheat and grinding it into flour are only the first step of "wheat out of Taiwan." Next comes expanding cultivation, improving quality, and bringing in better management and marketing, so that Taiwan wheat can survive sustainably.

The Homemakers United Foundation, which has long accompanied Shi Minghuang, is not only a major supporter of Taiwan wheat products, but also provides the greatest help in education and promotion. Foundation director Huang Shude says that local wheat still has problems such as variety improvement and field management, but from the meaning of supporting small farmers, being friendly to the environment, and rethinking food self-reliance, this is a path that must be walked. At the same time, she also believes that in an era when wheat-flour foods are gradually becoming mainstream in Taiwan, there is no reason Taiwan wheat cannot survive.

Promoting wheat cultivation is not just the promotion of a single crop; it in fact carries the deeper meaning of restoring rural value.
Silent for a hundred years, Taiwan wheat rose and fell, surviving within rural life, yet disappearing under policy changes. To this day, civil society uses rural action to restore the golden glow of wheat. To let Taiwan wheat enrich the Taiwanese countryside requires the help of more people with heart.

Along the way, Shi Minghuang fought out a way to live amid hardship. The main reason is the perseverance of a dreamer, and the greater factor is that he stirred up too much passion for cherishing the Taiwanese countryside. Everyone wants to do their part and contribute to "wheat out of Taiwan," thus forming a huge force and becoming a trend.

Want to help get wheat out of Taiwan? You can join the ranks of the wheat field rhapsody. Whether buying or supporting, it is all for the great action of achieving good Taiwan wheat.

The rural dream is not a fallow retirement home, not a science city occupying land, but flying drops of sweat in golden wheat fields.