Agronomists have usually maintained that Taiwan's population would sooner or later overtake their ability to increase the food supply. For a time, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it appeared as though the moment had arrived. Population increase was averaging 3.6 per cent a year, thanks to a high birth rate and health and hygiene programs that steadily forced down the death rate. In the same period, the output of rice—principal domestic food crop and the Taiwan staff of life—gained by around 3 per cent a year.
By 1963, the birth rate had declined somewhat, and the rate of population increase was down to a little over 3 per cent. Still, if rice were to increase by no more than 3 per cent annually, a deficit seemed inevitable. The 12 million people of the island are living better than ever and that means they are eating more. With industrialization proceeding, and farm population already down to half of the total, a dramatic rise in food consumption loomed just ahead. Many of the experts resigned themselves to the acceptance of a food deficit that would have to be made up by imports paid for by export of manufactures and processed agricultural products.
But this reckoned without the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction and its revolutionary new package treatment of rice and other farm crops. In last fall's first extensive test of the plan, increase in rice yields ran as high as 99.8 per cent. For the four trial areas, the lowest increase was 28 per cent. In each case, the gain was outstanding, even allowing for the additional cost of more fertilizer and pesticides, and the increment of labor required.
Taiwan's average per acre production of paddy rice is currently about 2,400 pounds. Agronomists say that if the package plan lives up to preliminary indications, per acre output should reach an average of 4,000 pounds by, 1970. What is true of rice also, applies to other crops, which have recorded increases of from 16 to 62 per cent.
Those farmers who have seen the package plan in action are sold on it all the way. And little wonder. Farmer Lai Chuan-chih of Wuchih township of the Ilan area in northeastern Taiwan, one of those involved in the first test, almost trebled the crop from his five acres and made enough money to build a new house. It was a good thing, because his old house was demolished in a typhoon. His family of 11, who barely had enough to eat before the JCRR experiment began, now looks forward to a new life of comparative plenty.
Demonstration plots, totaling 25 acres each, were chosen by the Taiwan Provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry. They ran a gamut from north to south: Ilan, Changhua, Tainan, and Pingtung. All those participating had to be ready to carry out instructions to the letter, and to forget their preconceived ideas of what constitutes efficient, productive farming.
More Fertilizer
Plowing was to a depth of six inches instead of the conventional four. JCRR had found that deeper rooting would increase the absorption of nutrients and thus lead to taller, sturdier plants and fuller, heavier grain. Seeds were chosen with the greatest of care to prevent seed-borne diseases. For transplanting, only those plants with four or five leaves and obviously strong and healthy were chosen. The number of seedlings per hill was reduced to four or five. At the same time, however, the density of planting was increased to make up for the smaller number of plants.
Use of fertilizer—both potassium and nitrogenous—was approximately doubled. More than three times as much money was spent on pesticides to make sure that insects didn't reap the benefits of the increased growth. Spraying was carried out according to a synchronized, coordinated schedule. Careful cultivation and weeding were stressed.
These are some of the results, comparing the demonstration fall crops of 1963 with the pre-demonstration fall crops of 1962:
Ilan—4,182 pounds of rice per acre compared with the previous 2,094 for a gain of 99.7 per cent.
Changhua—3,536 pounds versus 2,763, gain of 28 per cent.
Tainan—5,088 pounds versus 3,097, gain of 64.3 per cent.
Pingtung—3,165 versus 2,405, gain of 31.6 per cent.
In terms of production cost, the increases were as follows:
Ilan—NT$3,942 (NT$40=US$1) versus NT$2,806, an increase of 40.5 per cent.
Changhua—NT$3,147 versus NT$2,908, increase of 8.2 per cent.
Tainan—NT$3,299 versus NT$2,190, increase of 50.6 per cent.
Pingtung—NT$3,418 versus NT$2,563, increase of 33.4 per cent.
Net gain—that is, the value of the crop after deduction of the increased costs—ran NT$2,948 per acre for Ilan, NT$1,542 for Changhua, NT$2,934 for Tainan, and NT$1,426 for Pingtung.
Extended Area
As for the total productive gain, after Ilan's 99.7 per cent came Tainan with 64.3 per cent, Pingtung with 31.6 per cent, and Changhua with 28 per cent. Various climatological, soil, and pre-demonstration factors were, of course, involved in the different yields, different investments, and different returns of the four demonstration plots.
Fields are soft but not excessively flooded as seedlings are tenderly placed in the soil (File photo)
Percentagewise, the largest increase in cost was for pesticides, which rose from NT$110 per acre to NT$340. Fertilizer, however, required the biggest actual monetary expense, rising from NT$586 per acre to NT$1,045. Then came labor, which advanced from NT$2,063 per acre to NT$2,498. All other factors combined were relatively unimportant, increasing the cost from NT$46 to only NT$58, principally for better seed.
From the four plots of the beginning phase, JCRR is extending the experiment to 15 plots for this fall. The range of soil and climatological conditions will be greater than last year, the number of farmers involved larger. Confidence is high that the results will be just as dramatic, and the whole program then can be turned over to the provincial government for island-wide implementation.
Whatever grows more rice should be helpful in raising other crop yields, JCRR has shown this to be the case in limited experimentation with a few other staples. A 62 of per cent was recorded for wheat. Soybeans were up 50 per cent for the summer crop and 37 per cent for the fall yield. Maize showed an increase of 23 per cent and peanuts 16 per cent. Costs also climbed but not in proportion to the higher harvest level. As with rice, further tests are planned on more extensive acreage.
Farmer Lai was close to· being a folk hero at the field day held to celebrate the Ilan triumph. He had led the way with a startling advance of 256.4 per cent—from the 1,84.8 pounds per acre of 1962 to 4,738 pounds just a year later.
Field Days
"I'll never go back to the old way," he said. "How could I? Here I have a new house, my debts are paid, and my children have the prospect a good education and a fine life. These are prizes worth working for. Mind the extra work? Certainly not—it pays off big!"
View of seed and paddy of the Ilan rice demonstration plot on Taiwan's east coast (File photo)
Field days were held at each of the four demonstration plots. Neighbors' eyes bugged out at the results, because some of them had been doubters. None went away unconvinced, and at Ilan their numbers included 400 farmers, 4H Club members, and extension workers. Drinking their tea and sampling the refreshments, hard-bitten farmers looked out over the lush fields and asked when they, too, could open up the horn of plenty.
Some other ideas and techniques will be introduced as experimentation continues. JCRR experts speculate that gains from the year's first rice crop may be even more spectacular than from the second. This is because the growing period of spring rice is 20 to 30 days longer than the fall crop (because of the cooler weather). The added time should give plant nutrients an opportunity to work further wonders. Additionally, less productive varieties of rice have been favored in the spring because of the high contagion rate of blast disease during that season. But with stronger plants and augmented disease control measures, the extremely productive Ponlai variety can be successfully grown.
Farmer Lai, who almost trebled his rice crop (File photo)
Another innovation is plastic covers for young plants in northern and central areas, where late fall and early spring cold often inhibit growth. These inexpensive covers, which are extensively used for some crops in the United States and other countries, also protect the seedlings from insects and disease. The plants emerge healthier, more uniform, and with improved prospects of survival for a bountiful harvest.
Essentially, the package program is a mere continuation of JCRR and other efforts that have led to a steady progression of agricultural advances on Taiwan. Use of fertilizers and pesticides have been doubled and redoubled. Irrigation has been developed to a point where water is supplied as it is needed rather than by the continuous flooding of paddy land that so often leads to deluge for one farmer and drought for another. Power tillers are beginning to replace the water buffalo and manpower as a better and more economical instrument of plowing, cultivating, harvesting, reaping, and farm-market transportation.
Land consolidation is starting to make some sense out of the traditional pattern of oddly shaped and distantly divided holdings that plague so much of Asia. The farmer not only wastes time getting from plot to plot, but land itself is sacrificed to the abnormally large number of banks and borders. Under the consolidation plan, farmers are raising more grain, even when they lose a fraction of land for roads, irrigation ditches, or other communal facilities.
Behind the whole success story of Taiwan farming is a land reform program that has eliminated large and absentee landlords, and made owners of 87 per cent of those who till the soil. The contrast with conditions on the Communist-occupied mainland is inescapable. There, the Communists have grudgingly permitted farmers to resume work on tiny private plots, and that fact alone probably has prevented massive starvation. But the Communists fear this smallest degree of private initiative and are starting to crack down again, perhaps implying a desperate new food shortage and at the least assuring a continuation of grave shortage. Moving in exactly the opposite direction, toward more freedom and as many incentives as can be found, the Republic of China is feeding its own people better than they have ever been fed before and pioneering in the methods that one day will open the same door of opportunity to compatriots in the rest of China.