Wheat-Field Rhapsody

Yuanli has long been known as the granary of Miaoli. It used to be that after the second rice crop was harvested there in the winter, you'd see a patchwork of rapeseed and fallow fields. But over the last two years, the vistas have included something new and exotic: wheat fields.

In the middle of January, a dozen-odd farmers with an average age of over 60 had gathered at the home of Li Xinwu. Li was hosting a meeting of Yuanli's "wheat production and marketing group." Group members were waiting for Li Huangnan and his son, who own a 30-hectare farm in Tainan's Xuejia and were coming north to learn about growing wheat from these Yuanli farmers.

At the beginning of this year, the farmers of Yuanli's wheat production and marketing group in Miaoli initiated exchanges with small wheat farmers from various locales.

Li Huangnan is around 70, and Wu Wenxiong, who heads the rice production and marketing group in Yuanli, is part of the same generation. As soon as Wu saw Li, he wrapped an arm around Li's shoulder and warmly asked about his health, before singing his praises. "The 150-horsepower cultivator this man uses is pretty impressive!" he told the others. Then he nagged Li: "We're getting on in years. We really should leave that stuff to the youngsters. We've got to protect our health!"

The hard-of-hearing Li was determined to walk out to the wheat fields. He wanted to see how wheat was growing in Yuanli, where the soil and climate differ from his hometown.

The Yuanli farmers had resolved not to use herbicides, and consequently the wheat fields were full of weeds. The farmers from the two towns bounced information and ideas off each other: "This year the rainfall and temperatures were just right, so the harvest should be better than last year!" "You've got to be careful. Since you've planted before everyone else, your fields are ripening first. If you don't diligently patrol, the birds will eat you bare!" When Li was asked what he had gleaned from his tour of Yuanli, he said: "The Da'an River here provides ample irrigation water, and the soil is fertile. It's so unlike what we face in Xuejia, where the town is always last in line for water. What's more, the industry there makes the water shortage even worse, so the wheat has to be planted deeper."

Not long ago, some wheat farmers from various places even went on a round-the-island tour to talk to others like them. Those farmers from Miaoli, Tai-chung, Chang-hua, Tai-nan, Kao-hsiung, Ping-tung, Tai-tung, Hua-lien and Yi-lan were brought together by a surprisingly small operation: the Rejoice Bread Workshop in Changhua.

Emphasizing the importance of wholesome ingredients, the Rejoice Bread Workshop invites one and all to taste its sweet-smelling baked goods made with locally grown wheat.

Adama Shih, who is in his 50s, has a distinctively bright laugh. He has been operating Rejoice for 12 years and is its sole investor. His workers are all physically or mentally handicapped. For several years he's been relying on home delivery sales and collective purchases from the Homemakers Union, which are distributed through its sales offices.

In 2007, the exploding price of wheat was causing a crisis for flour users like Shih. But unlike other business proprietors who either resigned themselves to the high prices or chose to close up shop, Shih boldly asked: "Can it really be that Taiwan can't grow its own wheat?"

Just then a friend reminded him that farmers in Taichung's Daya still had a contract to supply wheat to the Kinmen Distillery. He immediately went to make inquiries. That was his first step down the path toward "wheat-field madness." At first he signed a contract with Zhang Wenyan, a farmer in Yuanlin Village of Taichung's Daya for a hectare's worth of wheat.

Adama Shih says he made the decision rashly: "I figured the most I could lose was NT$70-80,000. I regarded it as my 'tuition' for studies in the field." During those three months that the wheat was growing, he drove two or three times a week to Daya to inspect the fields. "Only by getting personally involved could I gain an understanding of the basic problems facing Taiwanese agriculture!"

The experience taught Shih several things: First, he learned to challenge the common misconception that wheat is a temperate-zone crop which isn't suited to being planted in Taiwan. His rebuttal is that back in the Japanese era, many farms in central and southern Taiwan planted rice and wheat in rotation. Back then, Japanese academics even said: "Taiwanese wheat is of excellent quality with a high bran content and is especially well suited for making bread." Secondly, Shih notes that "Tai-chung Strain No. 2" wheat planted in Daya has yields of about 2,200 kilos per hectare, which isn't far from the average of 2,500-2,600 kilos per hectare in the American Midwest.

Shih's experiences have prompted some basic questions about ROC agricultural policy: "Extensive planting of wheat isn't hard, so why has the government completely given up on it? Why hasn't it been considered for fallow land?"

It's worth noting when grain prices were peaking in early 2008, the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station held a fieldwork class in Daya about increasing wheat yields. Then, when the price of wheat fell back to earth later that year, the plan seemingly disappeared without a trace, much to Shih's displeasure. "Can it really be that government policy swings as wildly as the short-term price of wheat?" he asks incredulously. "How completely lacking in direction!"

When most believed that the market price had "normalized" and that the government could thus let go of responsibility, Shih took a contrarian approach: He looked for more famers who would be willing to plant wheat under contract.

At the end of 2008, Adama Shih unveiled "wheat-field madness version 2.0" (which is how he signifies the second year of growing wheat). He had contracts in Daya again, and added some in Yunlin's Citong, but total production was still very small. Rejoice's efforts during those first two years became the subject of a special public television report: "Taiwan's Wheat Fields." After the program aired, a growing number of farmers introduced themselves to Shih and conveyed their enthusiasm for his project. That's how the group of farmers in Miaoli's Yuanli became force 3.0 in Rejoice's wheat-field army.

When version 4.0 rolled around, there were new contracts farther south and east, with wheat now growing in Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Taitung, Hualien, and Yilan. By last year there were a total of 25.9 hectares under cultivation, with the March harvest this year predicted to reach 47 metric tons.

Some people may wonder: More than a million tons of wheat is imported into Taiwan each year. In comparison, total production by Adama Shih's farmers is but a drop in the ocean. What kind of real impact could it have?

Shih's response to that question: "In terms of value, the wheat under contract here in Taiwan can't be compared to what's imported. But those farmers aren't aiming to replace all imports, but rather to create choice and raise understanding about the concept of self-sufficiency in food production."

Although the steady growth of farmers growing wheat in Taiwan is something to celebrate, the process hasn't always been smooth sailing. The wheat harvest in early 2010 was poor throughout Taiwan. Shih tried to analyze why for future reference. Here's what he came up with on his blog:

(1) For this year's crop, Yuanli accounted for the largest area under cultivation, but it was the first time those farmers had ever planted wheat. They all chose to cover the planted ground with straw. Unfortunately, northeasters blew the straw off, bringing the germination rate down.

(2) In 2010 Yilan continued to suffer with cold and hazy weather, and the ground was waterlogged. It was the first time that farmers there tried to plant using environmentally friendly "natural farming" methods. Their harvest was clearly inferior to what was reaped in central and southern Taiwan.

(3) Wheat-field madness farmers have all agreed not to catch or poison birds. Our farmers in Yuanli suffered particularly heavy damage from birds. The pepper and garlic solutions they tried proved ineffective.

(4) During winter, south winds usually last for just brief periods in the morning. This year the weather was odd, and during the stages of flowering and seed filling, when cold fronts were expected, spring-like weather came instead. At the beginning of February warm southern winds blew for six days running. That ended up confusing the wheat, so it ripened early, bringing lower yields.

(5) After typhoon Morakot, the south entered a drought, and harvests in Tai-nan's Xue-jia declined. Fortunately, the protein content increased 2.5% over previous years!

From the standpoint of economic efficiency, if the aim is to rapidly increase production of wheat, then you should want to concentrate production in one area, saving on management and transportation costs. Yet Shih has taken a contrarian approach, focusing on "preserving the diversity of small farmers." At the same time he has made a meticulous record of all variables, including differences in temperature, wind direction, plant height and so forth. He is thus building a comprehensive databank about wheat production in Taiwan.

Aiming for environmental friendliness, Adama Shih and his farmers have agreed to the following restrictions: "no trapping birds, no herbicides and no insecticides." At the end of last year they added "no chemical fertilizers." To soften the losses that farmers have suffered by switching to eco-friendly methods, Shih has raised the contracted price by NT$2 per kilo (the original contracts set a price of NT$28 for clean, roasted wheat).

As the leader of this endeavor, Adama Shih has felt pressure related to the processing, distribution and use of wheat. Currently these issues are the biggest problems facing small-scale producers of non-rice grains in Taiwan.

First, there's the issue of finding a flour mill. Shih explains that large-scale mills all stipulate minimum amounts (typically 30 metric tons). To solve this problem, over the last two years Shih has purchased his own small milling machine and refrigeration equipment with a 12-ton capacity. With these, Rejoice can mill pure wholemeal wheat flour without added gluten.

With "wheat madness version 3.0," production rose to 27 tons. On the introduction of the Homemakers Union, Shih and his farmers were finally able to get Taichung's Qiafa Flour Mill to grind their wheat. The resulting flour was fresher and higher quality. Adama Shih invited farmers to go to the mill to gain a better understanding of the principles behind the grinding of flour. That way, when farmers were harvesting and roasting their wheat, they could draw from their experiences at the mill to take into account the requirements of late-stage processing. Now they do a better job of screening and cleaning the wheat.

After forging links with a professional flour mill, the next step was to weigh processing options with an eye toward product positioning. In terms of processing, there are two main choices: making white flour or making whole-wheat flour. Most Taiwan mills grind white flour, and there's greater consumer demand for it, but white flour requires wheat of stable quality, and the procedures are very exacting. On the other hand, whole-wheat flour, which preserves the nutritional content of the wheat, only requires direct tempering and pressure grinding. That's what Rejoice chose to make.

The Homemakers Union Consumers Co-op, Rejoice Bread's largest institutional consumer, has been a staunch ally for Rejoice, providing much needed consumer feedback.

Chen Hsiu-chih, chairwoman of the co-op, says that the first year the co-op assessed its needs and placed an order for 1.3 metric tons of wheat from Rejoice, which would be turned into 1000 one-kilo bags of whole-wheat flour. As for choosing what products to use the flour in, the co-op was forced to make decisions on the fly.

The first year's experience proved highly- valuable. The co-op's product department decided at first to market only small bags of the whole-wheat flour, since whole-wheat flour, with a higher fat content than white flour, spoils more quickly. But during the hot summer months, home-makers' interest in baking plummeted. Seeing that the three-month expiration date on these bags was nearing, the co-op staff quickly got together with a few food processing companies and had them add set proportions of the whole-wheat flour to the flour that they were using to create baozi (filled steamed buns), mantou (steamed bread buns) and biscuits. A portion of raw wheat, moreover, was turned into instant multi-grain meal, and another small portion was sold as is, so that it could be added to brown rice for increasing fiber.

But how do the products made with Taiwan wheat taste?

Chang Ya-yun, editor-in-chief of the co-op's publications, says that the feedback she's got from the mill and co-op members suggests that on the downside the whole-wheat flour made from wheat grown in Tai-wan doesn't rise as well, but on the upside it has a heartier, denser texture. For instance, they hired Fuyishan, a famous manufacturer of food products in southern Tai-wan, to make "soda biscuit" crackers with 30% whole-wheat flour. "The manufacturers needed some time to gain experience with the special character of this flour," Chang says. "The company worried that the ingredients would blend poorly and their brand image would hurt." Consequently, Fuyishan tinkered for six months with four different kinds of crackers made with added whole-wheat flour before releasing one version. Fearing that the new taste wouldn't appeal to some co-op members, the company specially put them in smaller packages.

"It turned out that some people prefer the taste of those new crackers," Chang says, "and others prefer the airy, crispy texture of the original."

"Even if locally grown wheat products aren't as tasty," Chen stresses, "they support local farmers, are good for the environment, and prompt reflection about the importance of self-sufficiency in food production. Only if more people encourage these small farmers to plant wheat will there be a chance to improve the quality of local strains and continue working toward backend processing improvements."

Perhaps one day you'll have a chance to enter a field of gleaming wheat, or maybe you'll be out on the street when one of the small trucks that Adama Shih has emblazoned with his slogan "Walk the walk to talk the talk" passes by. At that point, wish this group of crazy fools well-or even better, join them in their quest for more Taiwan wheat fields.