A New Era in Agriculture

It is accepted wisdom among growers of vegetables, fruit, and even flowers that if you don’t use fertilizers and pesticides, you won’t get a good harvest.

Warren H.J. Kuo, a professor in the Department of Agronomy at National Taiwan University, says that contemporary agriculture is on “life support.” Without “tubes” constantly injecting fertilizers and pesticides, it couldn’t stay alive.

Small family farms which both cultivate crops and raise animals are the trend of the future in agriculture.

Grandpa Apple

So how is it that 70 or 80 years ago, before chemical fertilizers and pesticides, agriculture in Taiwan was perfectly healthy?

“Once you use agrichemicals, biodiversity gets messed up,” says Kuo. He explains that once the ecological balance is destroyed, the “free labor” (beneficial microorganisms) that formerly manufactured nutrients in the soil disappears. Even if you convert the land back to organic farming, there is no guarantee that these microorganisms will return within a short timeframe.

Is agriculture fated to stay on life support forever? “It’s going to take time for the land to recover,” says Kuo. When the secretary-general of Japan’s organic farming association came to Taiwan, he said that the Japanese experience has been that recovery takes at least seven or eight years.

The story of Japan’s famous “Grandpa Apple” supports this estimate.

Akinori Kimura (who in September of 2011 visited Taiwan to exchange ideas with local farmers) lives in Ao­mori Prefecture, Japan’s major apple-producing region. Because apples are highly vulnerable to disease and pests, they have long been cultivated with heavy doses of agrichemicals. But in 1978 Kimura, whose wife was sensitive to pesticides, decided to try farming without fertilizer or pesticides. Though in the first few years he did indeed lose a lot of production to disease and pests, after 11 years his orchard finally reached full flower and he reaped a bountiful harvest.

Small family farms which both cultivate crops and raise animals are the trend of the future in agriculture.

Goal: Organic nation

The promotion of toxin-free farming has implications not only for the environment and human health, but for national food security as well.

For a long time now, food prices have closely shadowed oil prices. If oil prices skyrocket and never come back down, farmers will be unable to afford agrichemicals, and the entire agricultural system will drive right off a cliff.

Social disorder resulting from food shortages is not something confined to ancient history. In 2008, climate change caused a plunge in worldwide production of staple foods. Eighteen food-exporting countries, including Russia and India, immediately announced restrictions on food exports, and subsequent food shortages and price increases led to riots in several places.

Taiwan has food self-sufficiency of only 30%, and imports large amounts of soybeans, corn, and wheat. In June of 2008, food prices were 12% higher than they had been a year before, with the price index for imports a breathtaking 26% higher. The government was so concerned they convened a special national security conference.

“There’s only one real way to fundamentally solve this problem,” says Kuo with the utmost seriousness. “We will have to spend 20 or 30 years increasing our food self-sufficiency rate while steadily reducing use of agrichemicals so that we become a genuine ‘organic nation.’”

But how can we get farmers to change?

“The only way farmers will transform their methods is for budget priorities to change,” responds Kuo. Some of the policies currently in place conflict with the government’s stated intention to promote organic farming. The classic example is that the government subsidizes chemical fertilizer to ensure price stability. But Kuo wonders, “If you ­really don’t want farmers to use the fertilizer, then why worry if the price goes up?”

The third G

Some are skeptical, given Taiwan’s small size and high population density, about whether the island really has the conditions necessary to develop organic agriculture on a wide scale. Can organic farming really produce enough food for 23 million people?

Yang Ru­men, founder of the 248 Farmers’ Market, points out that Taiwan has 800,000 hectares of farmland, of which 230–250,000 hectares are deliberately left fallow. Taiwan has about 500,000 or so active farmers, meaning that the average farm is between one and two hectares. These small farmers are addicted to high yields produced by agrichemicals; few have the resources to take the risk of a short-term drop in production, especially since few know how to market organic crops, which are more expensive, to consumers.

But what if this farmed land could be used for toxin-free cultivation? Would it produce enough to keep our bellies full?

“It’s a myth that toxin-free agriculture has low production levels,” Kuo explains. In advanced countries, once the transition phase to allow recovery of the land passes, yields for organic farming are about 80% of those for conventional farming, and for paddy rice they are virtually identical. In backward countries, yields for organic farming are actually higher than those for conventional methods, because those countries lack the money for sustained pesticide treatment, and they end up only wiping out the helpful microorganisms in the soil but cannot kill all the insects.

Small farmers are the trend of the future in agriculture. Kuo notes that for World Food Day (October 16) of 2013, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization adopted the theme of “family farms,” strongly urging the abandonment of large-scale agriculture and a return to the small farm system.

“The main productive force is small farmers,” explains Kuo. For any given area of land, corporate farmers employ extensive farming, while small farmers adopt intensive farming. Therefore, the more crowded a place is, the more it needs small farmers.

A “family farm” refers to a production unit based on the family, with a complete biological chain that includes crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Waste from chickens or ducks is the best source of protein fertilizer for crops, while pigs can feed on wild grasses growing between the fields as well as on kitchen waste. “This model—a small farm that does animal husbandry on the side—is the healthiest production model,” says Kuo, “and the only one that gives small farmers a chance to survive and thrive.”

Taiwan’s rural villages were once filled with family farms. Today, thanks to the advance of technology, there are many automated agricultural machines and facilities. If Taiwan’s agriculture can really operate using the family farm model in the future, Kuo trusts that small farmers will be future stars of the economy, and will enjoy happy and prosperous lives.