The 2nd Southern Agriculture Forum Focuses on Rural Core Values and Cross-Sector Communication
The second Southern Agriculture Forum continued its second day of proceedings yesterday (the 30th) at the Kaohsiung City Social Education Center. In the morning, the forum's third special topic, "Full Firepower: Adding Value to Rural Areas with Cultural Creativity," brought together experts who have worked for many years in fields such as marketing, tourism, leisure agriculture, ecology, and design to share their views on cross-disciplinary collaboration between cultural creativity and agriculture, offering both conceptual stimulation and practical examples for the sixth-industry upgrade of micro agricultural enterprises.
Liao Jen-hui: To Discuss Rural Cultural Creativity, First Discuss Core Value
Yu Chih-wei, general manager of Fashion Travel Service, which runs in-depth tours and small local trips, has traveled through all 368 townships and 7,836 villages in Taiwan, China. His takeaway is: "As long as you do not preset what you want to see, every village and town really does have local, irreplaceable terroir resources."
Yu Chih-wei mentioned the widely praised regional art festivals in Japan in recent years, led by Fram Kitagawa's Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, with activities spanning Niigata, the Seto Inland Sea, Boso, and other areas. But he also saw a problem: events like these, held once every few years and costing a great deal, what impact do they actually have on the daily lives of local residents? "It is like after the fireworks are set off, what is left?"
During the ten-month exhibition period of the Setouchi Triennale, a small island called Ibukijima was open for only one month. After Yu Chih-wei visited the area, he learned that this was the residents' decision, allowing tourists to visit during their busiest season, when the fishing catch is highest, because, as the residents said, "if they came on ordinary days, this small island would not be much different from anywhere else." For Yu Chih-wei, the residents of Ibukijima had a higher level of understanding and command of their own characteristics.
Yu Chih-wei wanted to ask: "Have we put enough thought into understanding local conditions?" He pointed out that origin trips in Taiwan, China currently still often rely on government subsidies, so the effort must be to create value with existing resources. He gave Jiaxian as an example: new resident mothers' cooking, taro products, and tug-of-war team experiences all use parts of the local existing terroir life to create cultural creativity.
In running in-depth small local trips, Yu Chih-wei believes tolerance and respect between tourists and locals are very important, but one should not keep drawing oneself smaller and smaller. He said that, in the face of China's vast source of visitors, we can use price and number of days to control the number of people coming and the depth of tourism, replacing the "shallow tourism" of mainland visitors that currently breeds so many problems.
How Can Young People Stay in Rural Areas?
In the comprehensive discussion of the following special topic, "Full Firepower: Adding Value to Rural Areas with Cultural Creativity," moderator Hung Chen-yu asked several panelists: "Is there any good way to improve the problem of young people flowing out of rural areas?"
Yu Wen-hung, secretary-general of the Taiwan Leisure Agriculture Development Association, said that his 16 years of experience back in a rural area taught him that, to keep young people in rural areas, there must be economic activity and employment opportunities. Rural areas cannot develop only landscapes and community building; industry is even more crucial. In addition, he believes that narrowing the gap between city and countryside can also help the young population return to rural areas, and with the current convenience of the internet and transportation, interaction and connection between urban and rural areas is already quite frequent.
Liao Jen-hui, chief executive of the Taiwan Ecological Engineering Development Foundation, said that from their team's experience when it first entered the Bayan tribe, they often heard local elders say, "First take care of the belly, then take care of Buddha." The implication was that ideals like ecology and landscape were too lofty, and everyone was watching to see what these young people had actually done to help us since coming here. It was not until the team's Bayan branch office reached annual revenue of 1 million yuan that they proved to local residents: it turns out beautiful scenery can also be exchanged for food.
Liao Jen-hui believes that, to bring the young population back to rural areas and let them have work to make a living, rural areas should prioritize the development of the biotechnology industry. In addition, the "half farming, half X" model practiced by many young farmers in recent years, meaning half farming and half engaging in another profession, is also worth considering. Young people in rural areas can make good use of the abilities they learned while making their way in the city and return to rural areas to help add value.
Yu Chih-wei, general manager of Fashion Travel Service, pointed out that the very reason humanity exists is to pass things on. If the older generation in rural areas is willing to devolve power and resources, young people will naturally be willing to return. If there is farmland, let young people cultivate it; if there are idle houses, let young people run homestays. Yu Chih-wei said: "With online promotion and distribution channels, there is so much that can be done!"
Li Hui-chen, editor-in-chief of Shopping Design, connected this to her own thinking that "culture, creativity, and design" mean "communication." She believes that young people returning home to farm is itself an imagination of what a good life looks like. For the two generations to eliminate barriers and jointly create a new situation, more patience is needed, and both sides must communicate and talk more with each other.