The Women Organic Farmers of Wubaihu

At 7 a.m. in Hua­lien the midsummer August sun is already fierce. A woman farmer opens a gate to allow a tractor to pass. Before planting the fall and winter crops, the land must be prepared.

The farm workers call that woman, the middle-aged Lin ­Peiru, “Boss Lady,” and she is in fact the owner of the farm. Her daughters, who returned home to farm after graduating from college, are her energetic assistants. The mother and her daughters have put their faith in organic farming, and they’ve met with great success.

Women helping women. Female workers provide most of the labor on the Wubaihu organic farm.

Lin ­Peiru’s farm lies in Zhi­xue Village, Shou­feng Township. The neighboring community is known as Wu­baihu (“500 households”), and Lin adopted the name for her farm.

Look around, and it’s green as far as the eye can see. Beneath Mt. Liyu, the farmland here was previously used by Taiwan Sugar Corporation to grow sugarcane. When Taiwan Sugar ceased growing cane in 2000, Lin ­Peiru and her husband leased this acreage to grow fruits and vegetables using conventional methods.

Lin and her husband had been woodcarvers, and her ideas about farming had been more imaginative than realistic. The first year on the farm proved shocking: farming, she thought, shouldn’t be like what she was experiencing.

First of all, the farm workers were often getting poisoned by spraying chemicals. It was a constant concern. What’s more, as a native of Yi­lan who married into a Hua­lien family, she felt a great affection for those places, but she was dismayed to learn the land she was leasing had been greatly damaged by long-term exposure to agrichemicals.

It bothered her deeply that chemicals were hurting both the people and the land. She talked things over with her husband, and they decided that in the second year they would start practicing organic agriculture, which was already gaining a foothold in Taiwan. Because her husband was also taking care of his father’s orchard on Li­shan, and their children were still in school, the Wu­bai­hu farm was largely left to Lin Peiru to manage.

Lin’s first step began with “feeding” the soil.

Farmland’s capacity to support organic agriculture can be assessed by measuring the soil’s organic content. Lin was shocked when tests that first year revealed that the soil only contained 0.7% organic matter, far below the 3% level of high-quality soil.

In truth, that piece of land owned by Taiwan Sugar had sandy soil that was well aerated and free draining, making it highly suitable for growing crops. But its assets were also liabilities: When it rained, the organic matter was easily washed out, so that the soil lost fertility.

Consequently, Lin drew up a long-term plan of campaign. Her secret weapon: woodchip compost.

One year she used 800 tons of compost made from woodchips, peanut meal and rice bran. Lin applies the metaphor of feeding to the soil: “You have to give it a lot of small meals. These aren’t chemicals. They don’t take immediate effect.”

“People feed the soil and the soil feeds people. It’s a ­never-ending cycle.” She believes that this relationship is at the heart of what is meant by “sustainability.”

It has been 13 years since she first started improving the farm’s soil, and by now its organic content has climbed to 2%. Lin calmly notes that although the level is still marginal, you can’t rush it.

Organic farming takes a “motherly” approach to farming by treating the land with compassion. The photo on the below shows loofahs and carrots grown on the farm, as well as pineapples that were interplanted with grasses and clover used for green manure.

After the farm attained organic certification, in 2005 it formally began producing organic crops. During the soil-feeding period, Lin never rested. She took classes at the agricultural research and extension stations in Hua­lien and Tao­yuan, and at the Council of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Institute.

Lin has three children. The eldest and middle child are both daughters. When they were still up north at university, their mother—half by suggestion and half by twisting their arms—convinced them to come back to Hua­lien and help her with the farm after they graduated.

“It’s tough to be a farmer and even tougher to be organic farmers.” Lin wanted her daughters to be knowledgeable female farmers, so she helped plan some “prerequisites” for them to take. Before they came to work at the farm, or even had graduated from university, they enrolled in training courses at government agricultural agencies.

Mother and daughters have thus trod the path of organic agriculture together, holding to the idea that “if you are good to the land, the land will be good to you.” To them, organic farming is not just a form of agriculture, but also an attitude that humanity should take toward the land. Consequently, their most important principle is allowing the land to rest.

“After a harvest,” Lin says, “the land needs to rest for 20 days to a month before you can use it again.” Using crop rotation is also a way to maintain soil fertility.

Some 70% of the farm’s 12 hectares of land is given over to crops grown under contract for organic retailers. The remaining 30% is left fallow. “You can’t plant it all. You’ve got to let the soil rest, and we’ve got to let ourselves rest too.”

Producing under contract is done to make the marketing of the produce easier. “When you can’t grow something, it’s painful. When you can’t sell what you grow, it’s even more painful.” Lin gives voice to a universal sentiment of farmers, whether traditional or organic.

In accordance with its contracts with organic produce retailers, the farm plants mostly pumpkins in the spring; bitter melons, loofahs and wax gourds in the summer; and cabbages, carrots and potatoes in the fall and winter. What’s more, the farm has a contract with a biotechnology company to grow bitter melons that are used in health-food products. Despite producing under contract, Lin still mixes crops together, to more closely approximate natural environments.

With regard to the pineapples that the farm harvests in summer, because the pineapple plants are intermixed with guava and lemon trees as well as grasses, the fruits they produce have a pleasant aroma and a good balance of sourness and sweetness. They’ve earned praise at agricultural research and extension stations.

What sets Lin and her daughters apart from regular farmers is that they aren’t looking to maximize production at all costs. Lin is willing to give the soil appropriate rest, and she doesn’t want to put it under undue pressure.

Organic farming takes a “motherly” approach to farming by treating the land with compassion. The photo on the below shows loofahs and carrots grown on the farm, as well as pineapples that were interplanted with grasses and clover used for green manure.

The “boss lady” has been asked this question: How do female farmers differ from male farmers?

“Doesn’t everyone say Mother Nature?” Lin responds. “The land is always thought of as feminine. A mother doesn’t want her family to eat unhealthy food. Consequently, women show more concern for nature and for the land.”

That feminine ethos has come out with righteous determination in Lin’s 31-year-old daughter Chen Shi-yi. Because the farm’s produce is first consolidated at the organic re­tailer’s shipment center in northern Taiwan before it is brought back to Hua­lien for distribution to shops there, two days are lost from field to store shelf. Chen was frustrated that local consumers couldn’t get their hands on locally produced organic produce at the earliest possible time.

To remedy this situation, she has worked hard to establish­ a local farmers’ market: Hao­shiji. She says Hua­lien has many farmers that are not using pesticides and herbicides but who nevertheless lack organic certification. They have limited sales channels available to them. Hao­shiji, a league of small farmers, works on trust. The market itself is the brand: It is aimed at allowing locals to eat safe local produce.

The Hao­shiji farmers’ market was launched in 2010, and is held every Saturday at the Hua­lien Railway Cultural Park. “At first I didn’t think it would have much staying power, because a lot of people in Hua­lien grow food themselves, so I thought they might not see much value in it. But it turned out that a lot of people were quite supportive.”

The market’s supporters include some who are interested in becoming organic farmers themselves. Some have even come to intern at the Wu­baihu farm after getting referrals from government agencies.

Organic farming takes a “motherly” approach to farming by treating the land with compassion. The photo on the below shows loofahs and carrots grown on the farm, as well as pineapples that were interplanted with grasses and clover used for green manure.

“We don’t take everybody,” Lin says. “They’ve got to pass an interview.” Lin and her daughters serve as the selection committee, and they use the interview to see if the applicant “is truly committed.”

The women ask the applicants what they are interested in, what their dreams are and what they would like to learn at the farm. They remind them that farming is hard work but that there’s nothing overly scary about it. And they urge them to seriously think over if this is what they want to do.

Lin ­Peiru says that to date all of the candidates have been men. She notes that most farmers are men, and, smiling, says that Wu­baihu has gone against the grain with three women. Nevertheless, when it comes to the farm’s success, she gives a lot of credit to her husband.

Every winter Lin’s husband comes back to Hua­lien from the orchard on Li­shan. Lin says he has strong organizational skills, and draws up the farm’s crop plans every year.

Interestingly, their youngest child, the son, left his original job and joined his father on Li­shan, so all five family members are now farmers. But the two men are in one place and the three women in another. Although the divided family still gets along well, a smiling Lin says that when they talk about farming, “We do argue about who’s better at it!”

Organic farming takes a “motherly” approach to farming by treating the land with compassion. The photo on the below shows loofahs and carrots grown on the farm, as well as pineapples that were interplanted with grasses and clover used for green manure.