Taiwan Today

Until 1990, Tsai Hsiu-yin's (蔡秀英) childhood dream—to have a garden of her own­ was—about as attainable as a Lear jet. Living in Taipei, a city with land prices rivaling downtown Tokyo, made anything more than a porch-sized garden an unaffordable luxury.

Then the 43-year-old pharmaceutical researcher heard about a public "leisure farming" project started by the Taipei Farmers' Association (TFA), a civic organization established to boost the city's agricultural industry. "I rushed to call them," Tsai remembers. "I was told I could actually rent a piece of farmland in the mountains near Peitou for a very low price and could plant anything I liked." After a few more phone calls, a discussion with the farmer, and a trip to the scenic, hillside farm in a northern suburb of Taipei, she signed a lease. Tsai finally got her dream garden.

The Peitou farmer who shares his fields with the public is Wu Chin-cheng (吳金正), respectfully called Teacher Wu by not only his students at National Yang Ming Medical College, where he lectures in parasitology, but also by the novice gardeners who rent his land and receive his farming advice. Three years ago, Wu began leasing plots of the 2,400-square­-meter farm he inherited from his parents. "The land had lain fallow for more than ten years," Wu says. He had stopped farming himself because labor had be­come expensive and profits slim. He couldn't even find farmers interested in renting plots. "No farmers want to lease fields these days because the money is not as good as it was," he says.

But while people weren't interested in planting his fields for profit, they were interested in it for fun. Wu found the so­lution to his problem through TFA's program. With a little help from the association, he opened Wu's Farm and Garden Club in 1989 and began adver­tising with newspaper ads and roadside signboards near Yangmingshan National Park. Today, more than fifty people have joined his farming club, including a pop singer, lawyer, professor, doctor, housewife, copywriter, and stockbroker.

Wu personally interviews each ap­plicant before granting membership. He stresses that it is important to know their motivation before allowing them access to his farm. So far, he has not turned any­ one away. Many members, such as Tsai Hsiu-yin, join out of love of gardening. Others find it an inexpensive leisure ac­tivity that relieves stress. For free-lance copywriter Lin Mei-ching (林美靜), who became a member last January, the farm is an escape. "Every time I come here, I simply let my mind go blank and con­centrate on the soil and vegetables," Lin says. "I forget all the things that are both­ering me."

Healthful food is another motive for these weekend farmers. In the face of growing concern about pesticide residue in local produce, the members of Wu's club are sure their vegetables are safe. The farm uses pesticides, but sparingly. "Our vegetables might not look perfect, but they are very safe to eat," he says.

The club also serves an educational function. It has become a natural class­room for members' children, most of whom had never seen broken soil. Wang Mei-yun (王美雲), a ceramics teacher and a mother of an 8-year-old, feels that urban children are being deprived of chances to experience the outdoor pleasures she en­joyed as a child. "This is their chance," she says. "Here, children also learn the names of different insects and plants, and come to understand their relationship to nature."

At the farm, members pay a monthly fee of US$2 per ping (3.24 square meters) of field. Lots vary in size from ten to fifty pings and are leased on a four-month contract. Some members have switched to a yearly lease after the initial four months. In her ten-ping garden, Tsai Hsiu-yin grows corn, cucumbers, melons, gourds, eggplant, and many other veg­etables year-round. "When people ask me what I plant, I first have to ask them, 'How many vegetables do you know?'" she says. Aware that not all members are as ambitious as Tsai, Wu encourages them to start with easy-to-grow sweet potato leaves. "That helps to boost their confidence," he says.

Though many of Wu's members have a college education, few have any knowledge of vegetable farming. At first, many newcomers cannot even rec­ognize the vegetables they eat every day. Wu makes farming easy for these city slickers. He has hired a neighboring farmer to mow and plow each plot before planting. Although club members are welcomed to give these chores a try, Wu says, "they are city folks. Their hands are not accustomed to such rough labor." When the fields are ready, Wu teaches members the basics: how to plant seeds, when to water, and how to fertilize. Is it difficult to get started? "No, not at all," says copywriter Lin Mei-ching. "I was so excited that I forgot about the aches and pains. I had a lot of fun. And I still do." For Lin, watching her garden come up is like watching children grow up step by step.

Because it is an hour's drive from downtown Taipei to the farm, many members visit only two or three times a week. Wu's single employee waters the vegetables when members cannot. Those with busy schedules also rely on other members to help keep their fields going. Tung An-ke (童安格), a popular singer in Taiwan and Hong Kong, for example, visits the farm only rarely; other mem­bers tend his garden for a small fee. According to Wu, Tung keeps the fields so he can visit whenever he feels like it and has the time.

The vegetables grown on the farm are for not sale. All are shared with fam­ily and friends. Each weekend, rain or shine, the farm is full of people of all ages who come from Taipei and beyond to pick vegetables. One member who runs several children's language schools enjoys growing things even though he and his wife do not cook at home. "I give my vegetables to teachers at the schools," he says. "I'm also thinking about holding a summer camp here for our students."

Wu's biggest satisfaction comes not from the monthly US$1,200 he makes from the club, but from the family-like relationships that it has fostered. "In the beginning, everybody put up barriers out of insecurity," he says. "They would nod to each other politely but coolly. Then they broke the ice and began to talk. First they talked about vegetables, then about children, and then their lives. Today when we get together, which we do very often in the evening after work, we talk about almost everything. That's why I'm always home late." Wu stresses that everyone is equal in the farm regardless of social status. In fact, most club decisions are made cooperatively. For ex­ample, TFA recently donated a portable toilet and some garbage cans to the club, but Wu hasn't decided where to place them. "I need to talk to the members about it."

Unfortunately, Wu's Farm and Garden Club is one of a kind in northern Taiwan. There are a few such farms near Taichung, but the only other recreational farm started near Taipei failed. In 1987, TFA started a club in the northeast Taipei suburb of Neihu. Though the association had obtained a large piece of deserted farmland owned by five farmers, the venture never got off the ground. The elderly farmers involved lacked Wu's enthusiasm and personable manner. In addition, water sources were limited and there was no convenient route to drive to the site. The farm was finally closed last year. "If we wanted to make it work, we would have had to build a road," says Liu Ming-su (劉明賜), a TFA technician who oversees the urban agriculture program. "The problem is that we don't have a huge budget for this project."

The association began promoting agri-tourism in the late 1970s, when TFA's general manager, Huang Kuang-cheng (黃光政), began searching for ways to keep agriculture viable around Taipei. "Labor cost is much higher in Taipei, and the pollution is much worse than the countryside," he says. "So, the quality of Taipei's produce is lower but prices are higher than those of southern Taiwan. How can vegetables from Taipei compete with produce from elsewhere?"

Rather than fight the effects of ur­banization, TFA discovered a way to use the rapid growth of Taipei to its advantage. In 1979, the association began encouraging farmers to open U-Pick fields where urbanites pay a small fee for the novelty of picking and purchasing flow­ers, fruits, and vegetables straight from the field. The success of these farms in­spired the provincial government to promote U-Pick farms islandwide in 1982. "Since then, the meaning of agriculture in Taiwan has changed," says Huang. "Agriculture no longer belongs only to farm­ers in the countryside. Urban agriculture has arrived."

Agri-tourism went a step further three years ago when tourist farms began offering visitors such amenities as meals, lodging, playgrounds for children, and educational programs. Today, there are twenty-three U-Pick farms near Taipei with fields of tea, oranges, flowers, veg­etables, strawberries, wax apples, passion fruit, and mushrooms.

Urban farming clubs such as Wu's were the next step, but they have proven the most challenging of TFA's ventures. When the Neihu club failed, organizers were cautious about trying again. Though such tourist farms have been popular in Europe for generations, the idea was new in Taiwan, and TFA has a limited budget of US$24,000 for the program. Most challenging of all have been Taiwan's land-use restrictions. Under ROC construction law, no per­manent structures may be built on farm­land, not even a toilet or a rest area.

Farmers such as Wu feel these regulations are overly strict. "Members at least need a place to wash their hands and change clothes after working in the fields," he says. Today, the farm's only facilities are the recently acquired portable toilet and a crude pavilion he and the members have built from tree trunks and branches. Huang Kuang-cheng agrees that the restrictions are hurting, not helping, the industry. "Sometimes the government's attitude is too conserva­tive," he says. Promoting tourist farms, he continues, "would mean a lot to farmers and people living in the city. People are dying for places to go for recreation. "

Despite the strict land-use laws, the time seems to be right for agri-tourism. After all, Wu's Farm and Garden Club is enjoying its third successful year, and several recent newspaper articles on the farm have sparked enthusiasm for starting similar clubs. Last June alone, TFA technician Liu Ming-su received calls from five farmers interested in jumping into the business.

Wu chalks his success up to good timing. "A few years ago, people were too busy making money," he says. "They didn't think so much about recreation. Now that they have money, they are ready for leisure activities, and many are willing to make time for it." In the face of changing tastes in recreation, Wu's simple vegetable gardens offer a bit of peace and a glimpse of country living that city dwellers are finding more and more appealing. "KTVs, MTVs, and night clubs no longer interest people," he says, "and recreational areas and tourist spots are always overcrowded during holidays. There is no point in spending money on something which is not rewarding."