Agriculture's rebirth
The Executive Yuan's Council of Indigenous Peoples is engaged in a three-year program aimed at promoting industries unique to indigenous communities to help rebuild businesses in indigenous communities struck by natural disasters. The program has a budget of NT$240 million, some NT$37 million of which will go to build infrastructure, plan and develop services, and sponsor sales promotions in three Kaohsiung townships (Namasia, Taoyuan, and Maolin) over three years.
"Funding is limited," says Qusung Qalavangan, director of Kaohsiung County's Indigenous Peoples Department, "so I've focused on developing one workshop per township." He says that they've already established sales platforms for all three townships and are shipping agricultural goods and handicrafts down to the lowlands. Namasia's "distinctive local industry workshop," located in Jiaxian, opened in early June. Meanwhile, the government is developing a "holiday market" in Shanlin's Great Love Village to promote sales of produce from the mountains. The government will guide the initial development of the market, then turn it over to villagers once its operations get on track.
The problem is that Namasia doesn't yet have many distinctive agricultural products. With the exception of plum vinegar and plum nectar, the township has never attempted to process local crops such as bamboo shoots, red-flesh plums, and peaches into distinctive local products because they sold just fine without any processing. Faced with the problem of intermittent transportation links, the township must quickly learn to transform primary agricultural products into processed products such as enzymes, jams, and fruit vinegars.
As part of the effort to transform and revive agriculture in indigenous villages battered by natural disasters, the government and private sector have also begun promoting organic farming.
Bukun Ismahasan Islituan, a member of the Council of Indigenous Peoples and a retired Namasia teacher, says that indigenous townships are devoting less and less land to agriculture. As restrictions on the use of forestland grow more stringent, one feasible approach to the issue of how to produce the most value from the least land is to switch to organic farming. The CIP is therefore aggressively importing technology and methodologies, and planning to encourage villagers to abandon their old, relatively crude approach to farming in favor of higher-value organic farming. The CIP further proposes to have each farmer responsible for 3,000-4,000 square meters of land on small, scattered plots and plateaus around Namasia. These measures will help maintain the land's productivity, and enable the farmers to get better prices for their crops. Moreover, since indigenous farmers are accustomed to farming for their own needs rather than for profit, they tend to grow on small scales that have little impact on the conservation of mountain forests. Aiming to further its plan, the CIP has invited a team of experts to come up with a list of organic crops suitable to the latitude and altitude, and root crops capable of withstanding the typhoon season.
Three villages in Namasia Township have been designated "high-risk areas." Residents of these villages are eligible to apply for permanent housing in Great Love Village down in the lowlands, but most remain deeply attached to life in the mountains and have chosen to stay.