Spring thunder rumbles and farming gets busy; it is the right time for spring plowing in the fields.

50-year-old farmer + 40-year-old iron ox = 90 in drive (Photo courtesy: Luo Jikun)

Editor's note: Liao Deming is a new farmer in Yilan, renting land in the Dongshan and Yuanshan area, and this year marks his fourth year of farming. Deming practices natural farming and eco-friendly cultivation, but his style is a little different. He sells most of his harvest to friends, and the fields are quiet, with no bustling events; when it comes to farming and agriculture, he has his own ideas.

This is the second year he has used a "rice subscription" method for pre-orders, and in response to the questions of friends near and far, he wrote this Q&A collection. (This year's subscription quota has reached its first stage; if you are interested in buying rice from Deming, you can contact him after the harvest at the end of July, when it will be possible to confirm how much surplus rice is still available for sale.)

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A week ago, the cold snap before Awakening of Insects was seen off.
A week later, the first spring thunder of the year sounded in the afternoon.
The fields that had lain fallow for most of the year began to come alive.
Taking advantage of a few sunny days, I stretched, went out to the fields to loosen up, stepped on the ratoon rice, and picked up apple snails; my hands and feet awakened from their "hibernation," and I felt as if I had come back to life.
Thank you, friends, for your support and company all along the way! You let this small farmer keep farming earnestly.
During the rice subscription period, some friends raised very interesting questions, and I will briefly respond as follows:

Q: Why not buy land to farm?

A: In the fields I cultivate, one fen of land sells for about 4 million yuan; one fen of land, in good weather, can produce about 700 jin of edible rice, with one harvest a year. If I sold rice to buy land without eating or drinking, by my calculations I would only become the owner of one fen of land after 191 years.
Keeping farmland in agricultural use is a severe challenge in a capitalist society. A landlord willing to keep the farmland, willing to rent it out to maintain agricultural use, rather than simply collecting fallow subsidies, rather than waiting to sell the land to build a farmhouse, absolutely deserves gratitude and admiration; otherwise, returning to farming and returning to the countryside are just idle dreams.

For someone who is neither relative nor old friend, to be able to rent fields, to be able to avoid herbicides and fertilizers, to rely on a little diligence and some sweat, and to get the landlord to accept my farming methods without taking back the land, I am already thanking heaven and earth. Whether the field I cultivate is my own is not important. Henry Thoreau said it wisely: "Enjoy the land, but do not own it." My child's words touch me even more deeply: "These lands all belong to the Earth."

Q: Why not apply for organic certification?

A: The land I cultivate is all rented, the landlords are unwilling to sign contracts (due to the historical factors of the 37.5 Lease Reduction Act), and the certification fees are high. These are all reasons, but none of them is the fundamental reason.

Organic certification indeed gives many earnest farmers a pass that can open up business opportunities, but the more I know about organic certification, the more it feels to me like "a game, and all for nothing." There are people coaching organic certification who can teach you the "tricks"; if the organic labels are not enough, you can spend money to "top up"; certification bodies vary in quality, some are very "annoying," and some are very "accommodating"; when should what be tested? How should it be tested? Which plot should be chosen for testing? Should you choose your own sample to submit, or will there be a surprise inspection? All of this is an art. From the mushrooming increase in certifying bodies to 11 (originally 12, with 1 removed), and from the many conglomerates stepping into the organic market, it is not hard to imagine the profit niche behind it, nor hard to imagine who gets to define organic standards.

"Organic" represents "business opportunity," but not necessarily the land's "vitality." Certification can have "tricks," but conscience has no "tricks." Growing healthy crops in a healthy way is originally a matter of course, but under the lure of "business opportunity," some people will "speculate." Then again, the same rice feeds a hundred kinds of people, and that is also true, so do you believe in people? Or in the labels?

Q: Do you use "natural farming"?

A: After becoming a small tenant farmer and reading some books, I learned that farming methods are endlessly varied, and there is even "Spartan farming," which makes crops grow in harsh conditions. In Taiwan, China, "natural farming" is a prominent school outside conventional farming. The public sector took over the "organic" label, leaving many small farmers who "cannot afford to play" or "do not want to play" to seek another way out, similar to the development in the United States where many community-supported farms turned to "certified naturally grown."

But what is the substantive meaning of "natural farming"? I found that everyone sings a different tune, and it is even tangled up with "lazy farming," "let-it-be farming," and "nature farming." To be honest, every piece of land has different "endowments," and every crop and every variety has a different "personality." Insisting on applying one theory or one farming method to all land and all crops is actually unworkable.

Understanding the land you cultivate and understanding the crops you grow is in fact long-term work, just like understanding your own child. No matter how wonderful the books say it is, and no matter how eloquently others speak, in the end it still comes down to this: "Practice is the best way to test the truth."
What farming method do I use? I use the "say it clearly, explain it plainly" farming method: what is used and what is not, what is done and what is not, that is the key.

Q: Why not hold events on your farm?

A: I have no land, no farmhouse, only a rented place to live. Apart from the toilet and kitchen, there are no partitions at all. Seeing where we sleep, friends exclaim, "Isn't this just the workers' shed where laborers lived before the house was finished?" Compared with the "feed warehouse" I lived in when I first moved to Yilan, the place I live now should be called "Heaven Workers' Shed."

In recent years, the people who said they would come help me pick up apple snails, replant rice seedlings, and weed never showed up, and actually that also let me breathe a sigh of relief, otherwise food and lodging alone would have been enough to give me a headache. Thank you for the enthusiastic suggestions. I understand the effects and business opportunities of the "experience economy." Setting up a farm-work experience, running a workshop, or doing a DIY activity can greatly satisfy modern people's romantic imagination, but given my real conditions, I am not yet able to do it. Please forgive me!

However, friends who truly want to jump in are very welcome; we can work together and eat together, and people who get more excited the stronger the sun is will surely enjoy themselves.

Q: Why not raise the price of edible rice? Why not make white rice a little more expensive?

A: Of course, people who think it is expensive will not pay attention to me, so they will not ask this question.
Almost all who care about this question are friends from farming. Some tactfully say, "Can you keep living like this?" Some spread the word: "Price-cutting competition, no wonder the rice all sold out!"

To be honest, among the people who buy rice are my teacher, my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my old friends of many years, and also a group of friends who specifically buy rice to send to orphanages, temples, and remote tribal communities. How much can I sell it for?
Of course I hope to have a little "profit" beyond my meager wages, but the people I face are friends, not a "customer base." Of course I hope farming can support a family, rather than relying on "half-farming, half-something else" to make up the difference, but this is a social problem, not my friends' responsibility.

However, there is a flexible way: set a deadline for rice subscriptions, maintain the original price before the deadline, and adjust according to the "market rate" after the deadline. Would that not make everyone happy?

Q: Why require prepayment for rice subscriptions this year?

A: Last year, people first filled out pre-order forms, and payment was only requested after the harvest. As a result, some friends forgot the quantity they had reserved, and some friends kept adding more at the last minute, causing a lot of tedious paperwork.

Of course, the main reason is that some rice payments were long overdue. Reminding friends to "remember to transfer the money" actually makes me feel embarrassed. To avoid such awkwardness, please bear with me. However, if there really is a special need, we can work it out privately.

Q: Is growing rice joyful?

A: To me, growing rice is a "livelihood," so I must do it earnestly and down to earth. It is impossible to adopt the "three phone calls" farming model (note), and even less possible to adopt "let-it-be farming" or "lazy farming." But growing rice is not my "career," so there is no pressure to achieve fame and success or to have a booming business. Having the chance to be a farmer is a rare opportunity. Most importantly, growing rice is a kind of "life," just like eating, sleeping, reading, and accompanying my child every day. A Romanian proverb says it well: "Mediocrity is Gold! The Ordinary Life is your Real Happiness."

(Note) The "three phone calls" saying: Rice production, from seedling raising, cultivation, harvesting, to milling and processing, has a fairly complete industrial chain. Rice growing is said to require only three phone calls: one to level the land, two to transplant the seedlings, and three to harvest. Sitting at home, one "naturally" gets a harvest. However, with this farming model, whether the landlord will renew the lease and whether the rice quality is good are another matter.

(This article is simultaneously published on the author's blog, "This Year, Heaven Provides Food")