Bean There, Done That:

It’s early May in Southern Taiwan, and the sun is shining high in the sky. The seemingly boundless verdant fields of edamame in Kaohsiung’s Qishan District glisten in the sunlight as farmers hustle to finish the harvest before the “plum rains” season arrives. A super harvester, about one story in height and costing over NT$10 million, has already harvested the crop, working under the dark sky before dawn with its headlights turned on, in order to meet the timing requirements of the processing plant. Then, washing, disinfecting, packaging, and fast-freezing operations are completed within an ideal four-hour window, preserving the optimal flavor of fresh-picked edamame.

Nearly NT$2.4 billion worth of frozen edamame still in their pods were exported in 2024. Not only are edamame Taiwan’s top-ranked export vegetable, since 2008 Taiwan has stood unchallenged as the leading exporter of this food to the high-end market in Japan, holding a market share in excess of 40%. These vegetable soybeans are therefore known as “green gold.”

The three pillars of edamame production

Chou Kuo-lung, a researcher at the Kaohsiung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (KDARES) who is known as “Mr. Edamame,” says that 2025 is the 55th year of vegetable soybean exports since they first began in 1971. Japan buys roughly 72% of Taiwan’s exported edamame, with the US taking about 19%, and 24 other countries about 10%.

Taiwanese edamame have been on the international stage for a long time now, and at their peak exports exceeded 40,000 metric tons. But in 1994 they began to face competition from low-priced vegetable soybeans dumped on the market by China. For a time, annual export volumes fell below 20,000 metric tons.

The government brought together edamame farmers and processors, reorganized farmland belonging to the Taiwan Sugar Corporation, and began a counterattack. It promoted the founding of a special export production zone for edamame in the Kaohsiung‡Pingtung region, and implemented three strategies for the ­success of the edamame sector: the use of large farms with mechanized production; a four-hour window for the harvested soybeans to go from farm to freezer in order to preserve freshness; and breeding improved varieties. In 2008 Taiwan finally recaptured the top spot among source countries for edamame imported into Japan.

Today, these three strategies have proven their worth as the pillars of the industry, and are being further ­refined.

In the export production zone, the entire process from planting seeds to harvesting has been mechanized. Chou Kuo-lung says that the efficiency of mechanization has been increasing year by year: Ten years ago, on average one worker was needed for every 15 hectares, whereas today each worker can handle 20 hectares.

“Believe it or not, nowadays we can get edamame from farm to freezer in as little as three hours,” says Hou Chau-pai, president of Bai Sian Agricultural Products Co., Ltd. He explains that newly built processing plants have better capabilities and work faster. In the past, they were able to freeze three metric tons of vegetable soybeans per hour, but with current equipment they can freeze from eight to ten tons. At this accelerated rate, the processing time can be reduced.

KDARES specially developed the soybean variety Kaohsiung 9, known as ‘Green Crystal,’ which has large pods and high sugar content, to target the Japanese market. In 2024 they came out with a new variety, Kaohsiung 13, known as ‘Green Quartz,’ with the same sweet taste but darker green pods and higher yields. This new variety is already being cultivated on 20% of Taiwan’s edamame farmland and has further solidified the competitiveness of the island’s vegetable soybeans.

Superior breeding（ courtesy of Bai Sian）

Mechanized operations（courtesy of Bai Sian）

The four-hour freshness window

In Taiwan it takes only four hours for edamame to go from farm to freezing and packaging, keeping them optimally fresh-tasting. (photo by Jimmy Lin))

The battle for export markets

Chou Kuo-lung, who has been guiding the edamame industry for 25 years, describes vegetable soybeans as a “combat crop” grown for the export battlefield. Every step in the production process is closely connected and indispensable for success. 

The world’s largest producer of edamame is China, which grows this crop all the way from Heilongjiang to Hainan Island. Like Thailand, another of Taiwan’s major competitors, China competes for market share on the basis of low prices. Moreover, edamame imported into Japan from Taiwan are subject to a 6% tariff, whereas those from Thailand enter Japan tariff-free.

Chou explains that the average price of edamame exported from Taiwan is generally 25% higher than the low-priced competition from China and Thailand, though in 2024 and 2023 they were 30% more expensive, because of low production levels in Taiwan.

Yet despite being more expensive than the competition, Taiwanese edamame have been able to maintain a 40% share of the Japanese import market. There is a reason for this that is not widely understood, and that is the power of “Made in Taiwan.”

Chou Kuo-lung has guided vegetable soybean farmers for 24 years, making him a major contributor to Taiwan’s edamame industry.

The Kaohsiung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station has bred a number of vegetable soybean varieties, each with its own advantages, for farmers to cultivate.

Kaohsiung 13 (left) has the same sweetness level as Kaohsiung 9 (right), but it produces plumper beans and pods with a deeper green color, gives higher yields, and is more resistant to diseases. (courtesy of Chou Kuo-lung, KDARES)

Breeding and competitiveness

First let’s talk about seed production.

Since soybeans are self-pollinating, the seeds can easily be transported and propagated anywhere, meaning that Taiwanese varieties are being grown in other countries. “However, as part of our seed production system we purify the seeds for farmers every year, so that the seeds that farmers get still have all the characteristics of the original cultivar,” says Chou. Meanwhile, varieties that go overseas are easily adulterated by local strains. This is why Thai farmers complained that the Kaohsiung 9 edamame seeds they purchased from China were not pure.

In order to remain competitive in the export market and meet demand for different types of products, Chou has developed multiple cultivars for farmers to use. For example, Kaohsiung 13, the newest arrival on the scene, conforms to Japanese consumers’ preference for deep green pods; moreover, the pods are large and plump and the beans are full-bodied. This variety also has the advantage of being resistant to root rot disease and soybean red crown rot, and yields are 10% higher than for Kaohsiung 9.

Nonetheless, Chou’s proudest achievement is Kao­hsiung 12, which has “the good fortune of having many offspring.” Most edamame have two beans per pod, but over 30% of Kaohsiung 12 pods have three beans. For edamame producers, this is a high-yielding variety.

Kaohsiung 11 has a taro fragrance, and is suited to making powdered products for edamame-based instant drinks and vegetable soups. This variety is already being grown commercially by domestic businesses. Kao­hsiung 8 is resistant to cold and therefore more adaptable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

Hou Chau-pai uses precision preventive management on his farm, making it possible for his high-quality edamame to win out in the competition for high-end markets in Japan and the US.

Taiwanese edamame have plump beans that make for full-bodied pods, and the beans have a firm texture and sweet taste.

Well-managed fields

Hou Chau-pai is the only edamame farmer in Taiwan to have won a Shennong Award for excellence in agriculture. He points to field management as one of the key reasons why Taiwan’s vegetable soybeans have a competitive advantage in quality.

After many years of effort, whereas edamame ­farmers in other countries turn to pesticides when they see insect pests in their fields, farmers in Taiwan have instead adopted preventive management. Hou says: “We undertake preventive measures in accordance with various climate variables, and decide what agrochemicals to spray next based on variations in the weather. We are only able to make such predictions because we have accumulated a great deal of data and experience over the years.” Also, the government rigorously ensures that there are no pesticide residues in vegetable soybeans grown for export.

Taiwan’s strengths are in precision field management and detail-oriented crop care. Hou tells us that Chinese edamame sold into Japan are used by businesses. They are not packaged by portions, and can be seen on plates at the Japanese izakaya restaurants that sell them. Taiwanese edamame, in contrast, are mainly sold retail directly to high-end consumers. On store shelves, one can see package after package with the place of origin clearly labeled as “Taiwan.”

KDARES has developed numerous edamame cultivars, with beans that can meet the needs of different processors.

Vegetable soybean farming in Taiwan is completely mechanized from the preparation of land to seeding to harvesting, thereby lowering production costs. The photo shows a tractor preparing land for cultivation. (courtesy of Bai Sian)

Mechanization

Furthermore, while edamame fields in China are still largely harvested by human labor, in Taiwan the harvest was already mechanized as early as 30 years ago, thereby lowering production costs. Mechanization has meant that edamame farmers are not only professional agriculturalists, they are also farming machinery experts. Gildas Kernaleguen, a native of France who was sent to Taiwan in 1993 by his French employer as a maintenance technician, has established an unbreakable bond with edamame farmers. He fell in love with Taiwan and decided to remain in the country, opening a repair workshop and eventually getting citizenship in 2019.

Bai Sian Agricultural Products, whose farms are often used by KDARES and other agricultural agencies as demonstration sites for the cultivation of new varieties and various field management practices, is an example of a highly mechanized farming operation. They use large agricultural machinery including harvesters, tractors, and pesticide sprayers with a total value surpassing NT$200 million.

One harvester that went into trial operation last year is especially noteworthy. The driver’s cabin features air conditioning and television. “You might call this machine ‘half Made in Taiwan’—the parts were imported from European countries like France and the Netherlands, while the chassis was manufactured in Taiwan and the machine was assembled by Gildas Kernale­guen. The total cost was NT$15 million, but to import a fully assembled one would have cost NT$28 million.” In Europe bean harvesters of this type are used for harvesting bush beans (beans that grow on bushes low to the ground). In edamame fields across Taiwan there are 34 such harvesters in operation, ranging in age from two to 30 years old.

Bai Sian competes in the domestic, Japanese, and US markets under the brand name “Taiwan No. 9.”

KDARES has transferred technology to the private sector to produce instant edamame drinks and soups.

A blue ocean market

Because the market for edamame in Japan is already a “red ocean” market—fully developed and occupied—it took a lot of courage for Hou Chau-pai to take the risk of founding his own brand, Taiwan No. 9, in 2014. He has not only penetrated the domestic market, even establishing a retail sales outlet in Taichung this year, he has also expanded into the relatively open “blue ocean” market of the US. He is already the largest Taiwanese supplier of edamame to the US, with sales to the US accounting for 70% of Bai Sian’s exports, while those to Japan account for only about 30%.

Shauna Ting, executive assistant to the president at Bai Sian, notes that the main market for edamame in the US consists of Japanese restaurants and sellers of Japanese foods. Japanese international food trading companies are adept at marketing their homeland’s dietary culture, and when one also considers the recent vegetarian trends towards plant-based meat substitutes and clean eating (which prioritizes the consumption of minimally processed whole foods), edamame—which are by nature a health food—have become increasingly popular in high-end American supermarkets.

Black soybeans can be made into snack foods.

Given new vegetarian trends toward plant-based meat substitutes and “clean eating,” edamame have become a popular new option for health-conscious consumers. (courtesy of Bai Sian)

Meeting the challenge of climate change

Because in the past Taiwan had relatively few autumn typhoons, with most such storms concentrated in the period from June to August, edamame growers simply adjusted their growing season to avoid them. However, last year there were three autumn typhoons, which hit the industry hard. In the past two years, as a result of extreme weather, total production of vegetable soybeans fell by 30‡40%.

If edamame are exposed to temperatures below 15°C during their flowering and early pod formation stages, yields will decline and there is a greater likelihood of malformed pods. In cold conditions, the pods and beans will not grow plump. Vegetable soybean growers have already appealed to Chou Kuo-lung to breed a new variety that is even more cold-resistant than Kaohsiung 8.

Chou says confidently that although it traditionally takes eight years to breed a new variety, he and his peers have established a standardized breeding process whereby it is no problem to produce a new variety every year. He will next work on selective breeding of cold-resistant cultivars to come up with a new more cold-resistant variety.

As Hou Chau-pai states: “We are not focused on high yields or low price.” The core strategy for Taiwanese edamame is to put a premium on quality. Even if the sales price is about 30% higher than for vegetable soybeans from China and Thailand, Taiwan’s will continue to be coveted because of their superior taste and appearance as well as stable supply. This is the power of “Made in Taiwan.”