Did you know four out of the six new watermelon varieties developed around the globe over the last 60 years came from the hands of Taiwan farmers, or that half of all butterfly orchids, cherished by flower lovers worldwide, carry a "Made in Taiwan" label? The Council of Agriculture and China Airlines recently announced that the airline will paint the image of the butterfly orchid on its new Airbus A330-300 planes. Such a full-blown sales promotion effort, rarely seen in the past, will pave the way for export sales for Taiwan's quality agriculture.
Since ancient times farming has been a tough business. A few years ago I went to Chishan, Kaohsiung, to interview an old farmer. When I arrived at 11 p.m. there was not a sound to be heard in the old-style courtyard house. The 67-year-old farm couple was still out selling their produce. A little after five the next morning they loaded bamboo baskets full of pineapples onto a beat-up old truck and took off for the early market that began at six. The results of two back-breaking hours of picking, weighing and peeling brought in just under ten NT$100 notes.
To gather in the pineapples we worked up a tremendous sweat in the fields under the brutal sun. Even though I used a parasol, I had a terrible headache for two days after I got home, as well as shaky hands and rubber legs from helping load the fruit. A city person like me probably couldn't even get through a single full day of the farming life, yet this farming couple did it all year round, growing bananas, pineapples, and mangoes, and in some years making barely a few thousand NT dollars profit.
Joining the WTO has certainly meant an expanding trade deficit for Taiwan agricultural products. This has been the unavoidable price of Taiwan's accession to international organizations. But global climate anomalies have also led to droughts, floods, and untimely heat and cold waves that have hit farmers hard.
Last spring, planting had to be stopped because of a water shortage, and this year we had a rare March snowfall. The crops of tea and of top-grafted pears were severely damaged. Strawberries also rotted in the fields and had to be burned off. The last few summers have brought typhoons and mudslides that have destroyed farming access roads in mountainous areas, preventing the products of the farmers' painstaking labors reaching the market. In recent years fruit carts have become increasingly common on Taipei streets as farmers themselves transport their produce to the city to earn a little more cash. They pack up their stalls late at night and set off on their return journey in the dark of the wee hours.
Natural conditions are less than perfect and the structure of the farming industry is poor. The average Taiwan farmer owns just one hectare of land, which is not at an economic scale, and the price of land is 20 times higher than in Southeast Asia, while the cost of labor is ten times as much. With such high capital costs, export sales face great difficulties and farmers are forced to sell where and what they can. Even the 600 missiles pointing at Taiwan from the other side of the Taiwan Strait are unable to dampen our farmers' desire to sell their produce into mainland China.
The government's response to the farmers' plight has been quite positive. In the last several years agriculture-related assistance and guidance has been very forthcoming. Aside from plans to raise the Council of Agriculture to the status of a ministry, the authorities are promoting five large high-tech farming zones, four flagship products, product branding, online sales, and food safety systems. Although the agricultural population has decreased in the three years since Taiwan joined the WTO, output value has grown every year and farmers have had to make fewer adjustments than one might have imagined. This is worth rejoicing about.
In this month's cover feature, we look islandwide to introduce readers to many new approaches to, and successes in, selling Taiwan agricultural products abroad. The new professional farmer's enthusiasm for his job is striking. Agriculture is a way of life, a culture, and perhaps the miracle industry of which Taiwan can be most proud. To rebuild rural values and secure increased benefits for the less privileged farming population is our highest obligation at this time.
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