When you’re hungry, nothing brings joy and satisfaction like a simple bowl of steaming hot white rice. Yet with the area given over to rice cultivation in steady decline, even daily rice eaters are growing removed from its production. They have less and less opportunity to smell the fragrant scent of field rice wafting from nearby paddies.
Fortunately, there are farmers scattered throughout Taiwan who are intent on maintaining their fields, protecting the land and even returning to rice cultivation without pesticides and herbicides. They are conserving not just the beautiful vistas of Taiwanese farming communities but also a way of life, and they are reestablishing connections between people and nature.
The slopes of Shimen in northern Taiwan are steep, requiring terracing to farm, so the area under cultivation is limited. Local farmers still use traditional hulling machines.
A farmer in Nanpu, Hsinchu County uses a tractor to harrow his fields. As the soil is turned, it exposes many small insects, which in turn attract little egrets to feed.
Living in a farming village makes for happy children, and catching bugs at the edge of a field in summer creates indelible childhood memories.
In recent years more and more youths who are natives of farming villages, as well as “back-to-the-landers” from elsewhere, have adopted natural methods of farming. By both planting and marketing their crops themselves, they are paving a new way forward for agriculture in Taiwan.
Farmers in Shimen have provided an area of terraced rice paddies for groups who would like to experience farming. The hope is that more people will gain an appreciation for the hard work that goes into growing the rice they enjoy consuming.
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