Agricultural transformation
“After Morakot, our income fell dramatically. It’s not safe to work in the fields during the rainy season, and we can’t ship out our produce,” says Zhou Haoxiang, head of the Takanua Village branch of the local farmers’ association’s peach sales team. Because the roads become impassable, produce is often left rotting either picked or unpicked. Some farmers think they might have a better chance of preserving produce in the rainy season if they can process it into products like pickled plums or bitter tea oil.
But the equipment necessary for such processing costs several hundred thousand NT dollars, and the farmers just can’t afford that sort of money. The villagers hope the government may be able to use charitable donations to buy the machinery, and then make it available to the farmers to use.
Fortunately, however, peaches, which are a high-value crop, suffer less from extreme weather. Peaches are harvested in May before the flood season, and tourists can be attracted to the mountains with events arranged by the district administration around peach season or the firefly festival. Peaches can also be sold at the urban outlets operated by the peach sales team, so they are not a great problem.
Zhou notes that in the second year after Morakot, the peach farmers saw the need to enhance their competitiveness, so 13 of them agreed to adopt a system of unified management, coordinating when they spray pesticides, and which pesticides and fertilizers they should apply to comply with safety standards. As a result, the sweetness, taste and color of the peaches have all greatly improved.
Nangisalu people sell their handicrafts and processed agricultural products at the Dream Takeoff Center, which also provides a venue for the community to gather and talk.