Shared memories of elderly farmers in Yuanli: those years of farming life
Note: The Satoyama School, an environmental learning center in Yuanli Township, Miaoli County, launched its "Come Stay a Night in Satoyama" activity in November, which will lead participating partners to explore the relationship between the rice industry and the mushroom industry. The mushroom industry needs rice straw as a nutrient source for the spawn, and Yuanli's rice industry happens to serve as the foundation of the mushroom industry, which also fits well with the key point of "circular use of natural resources" in the Satoyama Initiative. To prepare for the activity, Wenhua, a Yuanli local and a partner of the Satoyama School, visited industry operators and compiled this article, telling the history of Yuanli's mushroom industry in detail.
(Friends interested in Yuanli mushrooms can contact the Tree Watch Education Foundation Satoyama School at 037-745200 / [email protected])
Wenhua 2013-11-20
Mushrooms of Neishan
However, after the market crash in the 61st year of the Republic of China, the price fell from more than 20 yuan per kg to 1 to 2 yuan, leaving mushroom farmers in tears. The chairman also shared a small story from that time. He said that his next-door neighbor heard that a friend was going to Dajia to check the market and see whether it could be sold at a higher price than Yuanli's purchasing price, so he entrusted a bag of mushrooms to the friend to sell in Dajia. Unexpectedly, that afternoon he saw the friend carrying back the same bag of mushrooms, now covered with black bruises, and returning it to him unchanged.
When asked how his own mushrooms had sold, the friend said that on the way back, when passing the Da'an River Bridge, he had simply dumped the mushrooms into the river (mushrooms are very fragile and cannot withstand the bumps of long-distance transport; once bumped, they turn black and can no longer be sold). His neighbor then asked: 'Then why didn't you throw mine in too?!' Truly, "cheap mushrooms hurt the farmers"!
In the early period, most farmers in Yuanli mainly grew rice, and they also developed Yuanli's mushroom industry accordingly (because growing mushrooms requires large amounts of rice straw as a base bed). Its output was once the second largest in all of Taiwan, so "mushrooms" became a shared memory for the older generation of farming people in Yuanli. In Yuanli, if you casually talk with an old farmer about mushrooms, I believe every one of them has an endless mushroom history to tell.
They often say that the children of Yuanli in the 40s and 50s were raised on mushrooms. That period of mushroom prosperity brought them considerable wealth, but the rapid decline of mushrooms also left them speechless. Although there are now not many mushroom farmers in Yuanli, each one is an expert, and the quality of the mushrooms they grow is first-rate. Winter is the peak season for mushrooms. Everyone is welcome to come to Yuanli to find Teacher Zhong, buy mushrooms, eat mushrooms, and talk about mushrooms.