Core prompt:Organic food and organic farms have become a widespread trend in Taiwan, and Taiwanese people are now bringing the same drive they once used to develop the economy into developing organic agriculture. When you drink a cup of organic herbal tea in Taiwan, it is hard to imagine that Taiwan was once known as the “Kingdom of Pesticides.” “Taiwan's pesticide pollution was so severe, and it had a lot to do with U.S. aid at the time!” explained Dai Meihui, executive director of the Dai Yanhui Cultural and Educational Foundation.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Driven by the market, more and more Taiwanese farmers are transitioning to cultivating organic agricultural products.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Eating organic food, growing one's own vegetables, and traveling to organic farms have become a fashionable lifestyle in Taiwan. When what people eat may be chicken full of unknown antibiotics, beef with mad cow disease, pigs with foot-and-mouth disease, and vegetables sprayed with unknown amounts of pesticides, Taiwanese people have long since taken action. Those with a little spare money and means have begun opening their own farms in cities where land is extremely expensive; those without space or means grow box after box of hydroponic vegetables on their balconies. What people discuss is not only the virtual Happy Farm in the online world, but also their own real “organic farms.”文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Sunshine Grandma's Experimental Farm文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
January in Taiwan is bitterly cold, but Zhou Meihui and her husband Dai Dongxiong are busily working in the fields. This couple, wearing rain boots while busy farming, were once a professor who taught design at Shih Chien University and a justice of the Judicial Yuan and an authoritative professor of Taiwan civil law, respectively. Now, as a couple approaching seventy, they personally work in the fields growing vegetables and promote organic farming that turns kitchen waste into gold. Zhou Meihui, who lived in Germany for more than ten years, was influenced by the German scientist Rudolf Steiner (who proposed the concept of Biodynamic Farming in 1924 and was a pioneer of modern organic agriculture) and has promoted organic farming in Taiwan. “If we don't do it today, we will regret it tomorrow!” Zhou Meihui said.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
“I felt that just buying ingredients from organic stores still would not make me one hundred percent reassured, so I decided to do it myself!” More than a decade ago, she began promoting growing one's own vegetables in Taiwan. She converted a villa in Sanzhi into a renewable energy demonstration house and also opened an experimental farm in Zhongli. More than a decade ago, when a garbage war broke out in Zhongli, Zhou Meihui and her friend Zhuang Yulong jointly promoted the method of turning kitchen waste into gold.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
At the experimental farm located near the South Garden Hotel in Zhongli, the land was provided by Zhou Meihui's students. Under Zhuang Yulong's technical guidance, the scale of the experimental farm gradually took shape. A specially made wind power tower was built beside the farm, and the entire farm's electricity supply relied entirely on this wind tower. The water in the ecological pond was enough to supply irrigation for all the crops in the area. “To eat healthily, there absolutely must be no pesticides. In addition to damaging the soil's pH, pesticides can also trigger cancer-causing growth factors in the human body!” Zhou Meihui emphasized. Therefore, the fertilizer in the experimental farm was entirely composed of organic compost made from kitchen waste. Zhuang Yulong pointed to piles of black soil beside the farm, with waves of heat still drifting from them in the distance. That was “golden compost” formed from collected kitchen waste after several months of fermentation.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Zhou Meihui's “composting technical adviser” Zhuang Yulong is chairman of the Taiwan Farm Management Association. He once won Taiwan's Top Ten Outstanding Agricultural Youth Award, has studied Taiwan's agricultural development over the past decades in depth, and is very skilled at how to grow good vegetables. “My secret is compost!” Zhuang Yulong said. “We once went to Taipei's Fuji Fishing Harbor to ask for spoiled catches to make compost, and the vegetables grown were especially plump and delicious!” There is a great deal of knowledge in composting: fish catches have the highest protein content, while dead leaves are low. At the same time, the compost temperature must be high enough for organic matter to ferment, and the insect eggs inside must be removed to avoid affecting the growth of fruits and vegetables when fertilized later. During fermentation, it must be controlled so that no foul odor is produced; only then is it good compost. As for animal excrement, there are also differences in degree. In the case of cow dung, the water content is high, and the content of organic matter and nutrients is too low, so the compost produced is not as nutritious as that made from pig manure...文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
In Taiwan, there are still many people like Zhuang Yulong and Zhou Meihui who are passionate about promoting organic cultivation, but more than twenty years ago, the depth of damage to Taiwan's agriculture from pesticides is difficult for us to imagine today.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
In Zhou Meihui's experimental farm, there is a specially made wind power tower, and the entire farm's electricity supply relies entirely on this wind tower.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Polychlorinated biphenyls triggered the green movement文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Older generations of Taiwanese people still remember the “polychlorinated biphenyl poisoning incident” vividly, because it was this incident that triggered a series of green movements in Taiwan. In the summer of 1979, in Taichung, unscrupulous operators made cooking oil from rice bran oil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls. After many people consumed it, they suffered skin ulceration and darkened bodies. There were several thousand victims. From then on, Taiwanese people began to pay comprehensive attention to food sources. In addition to the polychlorinated biphenyl poisoning incident that year, there was also a fake liquor incident. Professor Chai Songlin then issued a call and convened several lawyers, professors, and scholars to establish the “Consumers” Foundation," to safeguard consumer rights in Taiwan.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
The Consumers' Foundation began conducting twice-weekly random inspections of various products on the market, from dried goods from both north and south, Chinese medicinal materials, even betel leaves used to wrap betel nuts, bridal rose bouquets, and vegetables and fruits, all were brought in for inspection. They paid out of their own pockets to purchase these products on the market and sent them to professional testing institutions for testing, regularly holding press conferences to announce the inspection results to the public. Because the Consumers' Foundation is a foundation in the nature of a corporate juridical person and does not carry any for-profit purpose, the data it publishes has great credibility among consumers. It is precisely because of the birth of the Consumers' Foundation that the competent authority, the Department of Health, also began randomly inspecting various foods on the market and reporting to the public.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Five or six years after the establishment of the Consumers“ Foundation, in Dali Township, Taichung, Taiwan, another social incident occurred in which residents, protesting pollution from the Sanhuang Pesticide Factory, broke into the pesticide factory and demanded a shutdown, forcing the Taiwan government to establish the ”Environmental Protection Administration."文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
“Taiwan's pesticide pollution was so severe, and it had a lot to do with U.S. aid at the time!” explained Dai Meihui, executive director of the Dai Yanhui Cultural and Educational Foundation. Before the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, Taiwan did not have a habit of large-scale pesticide production. Even after being ruled by Japan for fifty years, it still maintained the natural planting methods of the past. “But after Taiwan received U.S. aid, in order to increase crop yields, it introduced American-style farming methods and used large amounts of machinery and pesticides, causing considerable damage to Taiwan's arable land,” Zhuang Yulong added.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
We have all seen scenes in movies of Americans using small planes to spray cornfields, and Americans also brought this farming method to Taiwan. In addition, Taiwan is located in the subtropics and has more pests and diseases. Those pesticides introduced from the United States could kill large numbers of crop pests and were favored by Taiwanese farmers. In addition, American-style chemical fertilizers could increase crop yields, so they were naturally very popular in an era when agricultural exports were dominant. However, this production method of using large amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides destroyed the soil's original pH and also caused the toxins absorbed by the human body to continuously accumulate.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
According to statistics from the Department of Agronomy at National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, from 1990 to 1995, Taiwan's average annual pesticide use was 37,000 tons, costing NT$4.1 billion, the highest in Asia, earning it the title “Kingdom of Pesticides.” According to figures from the Consumers' Foundation, dividing the total annual pesticide use by the population, each person in Taiwan was allocated 2 kilograms of pesticides per year.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
“For a period of time, major hospitals in Taiwan had specialized toxicology departments specifically handling pesticide poisoning!” Zhou Meihui said. Zhou Meihui had studied in Germany with her husband and greatly admired Germany's promotion of solar energy and green industries. After returning to Taiwan, she vigorously promoted renewable energy. In addition, her brother-in-law Dai Dongyuan was precisely the superintendent of National Taiwan University Hospital, so she had a profound understanding of Taiwanese people being poisoned by pesticides.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Some data show that between 1959 and 1981, there were a total of 28,358 cases of severe pesticide poisoning in Taiwan, of which 26,877 were caused by pesticide spraying. Among them, these were none other than paraquat of the herbicide type, organophosphates of the insecticide type, and metal compounds of the fungicide type. Therefore, in the past, toxicology departments in Taiwan hospitals were quite experienced in handling these pesticide poisonings. “At that time, in Taiwan hospitals, as long as patients were sent in during the day with unclear consciousness or accelerated heartbeat, if the patient was dressed like a farmer, 99% were poisonings from the above three categories!” said a senior toxicology physician.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
These endless poisoning incidents appeared in the media every day, inevitably making Taiwanese people deeply worried. It was also at this time that the promotion of organic agriculture was formally introduced to Taiwan. In 1985, the Taiwan government began evaluating the feasibility of implementing organic agriculture in Taiwan. In 1991, Japan's most famous “MOA” natural farming method was formally introduced, and only afterward did so-called organic certification appear. Organic chain stores blossoming everywhere were also born at this time.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
“This is what we grew ourselves. It's even richer than Yilan's Sanxing scallions!” When talking about farming, Dai Dongxiong's fluency was no worse than when he explained civil law on stage.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Green cultivation in Taiwan文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Rooftops as vegetable gardens文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
In Taiwan, it is popular to grow vegetables on balconies or apartment rooftops using styrofoam boxes or plastic pots, called “elevated planting.” This kind of elevated planting uses wooden racks to raise individual vegetable-growing plastic boxes one by one, neatly displaying and stacking them on the racks. It thoroughly solves the past problem of dirty fertilizer water falling onto the floor after fertilizing vegetables on rooftops. The vegetable basins are also specially designed so they will not all fall over because of typhoons or heavy rain.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
In a community building in North District, Taichung City, called “Zuo You Feng Yuan,” ten years ago all 120 households in the entire community voted to decide to convert the sky garden into a sky vegetable garden. They spent a considerable amount of money on waterproofing the rooftop. After all the preparatory work was completed, the residents turned the 200-ping sky garden into a sky vegetable garden. As long as community residents were willing to grow vegetables themselves, they could register with the community management committee and receive a plot of vegetable garden. If they had no time or grew tired of it, it did not matter; there were always other residents queuing up waiting for your vegetable garden.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Growing vegetables to sell to employees文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
In Shanhua Township, Tainan County, Chi Mei Electronics, a major Taiwanese panel manufacturer, opened a vegetable garden here called “Shanhua Nursery,” reaching forty hectares, growing vegetables organically to supply Chi Mei's group meals. During seasons of large harvests, they also sold them to employees at cheap prices.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
In the south, Chi Mei Electronics grows vegetables for its employees to eat, while in the north, the long-established Formosa Plastics has developed its own farm and sells organic vegetables. Formosa Plastics founder Wang Yongqing made compost on his own rooftop, grew organic vegetables, and even independently developed methods for composting kitchen waste, getting the lychee trees on the rooftop to bloom and bear fruit. Before Wang Yongqing passed away, at the Formosa Plastics building in Taipei, every three days there was a vegetable-selling truck that drove into the office of Formosa Plastics Environmental Technology in the rear building of the Formosa Plastics affiliated enterprise, specifically to sell vegetables to Formosa Plastics employees.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Farmers transitioning to organic文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
In recent years, organic farms in Taiwan have sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain. In order to improve the online marketing and promotion network of these guerrilla farms, the Agriculture and Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, even commissioned National Ilan University to build websites for these farms and establish online “Organic E-Mall,” “Organic Farmer Market,” and “Organic Farm Integration System.” The organic products in these markets and malls are dazzling, with fruits and vegetables, rice, tea, and all daily-needed agricultural products available for purchase online. Consumers can understand which farm the vegetables they buy come from and order directly from the farm household.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Under the influence of government guidance and social trends, many farms that did not previously engage in organic production have now also begun to operate as organic farms. “Biluo Village Organic Farm,” owned by the Wu brothers in Fuxing Township, Taoyuan County, is one example. Owner Wu Guoqiang inherited the farmland left by his parents. They let the farmland lie fallow for seven years, thoroughly letting the soil rest and recover its original pH value. Only then did they apply organic cultivation and further expand it into a sightseeing and leisure farm, making it a special scenic spot in Fuxing Township, Taoyuan County. In Taiwan, there are still many examples like the Wu brothers.文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/
Source: Southern Metropolis Weekly文章源自FOFCC-http://fofcc.org.cn/am/11307/