Taiwan Today

Fun on the farm broadens perspectives and builds environmental awareness.

One of the things that most impresses visitors to Yilan County is its rural landscape, showcased across 17 recreational agriculture zones. San-Fu Leisure Farm is located in one such area. “I bought the land in 1989 to cultivate pomelos,” said Hsu Wen-liang (徐文良). “We shifted our focus to agritourism a few years after that and noticed an improvement in both our income and local biodiversity.”

Both changes took hard work, and Hsu devoted time and resources to returning the land to its original state by creating habitats conducive to local wildlife. Fireflies, frogs and butterflies returned, as did larger fauna like muntjacs and pangolins. As Hsu hoped, the creatures attracted visitors and enhanced the farm’s ecological environment. “For farmers making a living from crops, wildlife can be a threat, but for agritourism operators like me, it’s a valuable resource,” he said.

“If San-Fu had remained a traditional farm, I probably wouldn’t have decided to stay on to work with my father,” said second-generation manager Lusia Hsu (徐儷禎). “As it turns out, sales of fresh fruit account for only a small portion of our income today.” Proceeds from fruit-picking tours during harvest season are donated to local charity, and Hsu said that most of her farm’s pomelo profits come from processing the fruit into ingredients used to make desserts sold on site throughout the year.

“Restoring and maintaining nature is definitely the priority for Flying Cow Ranch,” said Mike Wu (吳明哲), general manager of the leisure farm in northern Taiwan’s Miaoli County. Established in 1975, the facility primarily raised milk cows, but in 1995 it opened its doors to the public and began to develop its recreational potential in a renewed natural landscape. “In our first 20 years, we cleared trees to create pastures,” Wu said. “We then committed to reforesting,” he said. At 50 hectares, Flying Cow is one of the most famous tourist ranches in Taiwan, attracting 183,000 visitors in 2024.

For traditional farms dedicated to growing one or two crops without any direct consumer engagement, it can be both rewarding and challenging to undergo transformation. “We interact with patrons to understand their needs and wishes,” Wu explained. Feedback from tourists encouraged the farm to build a dairy processing plant and invest in the creation of upmarket accommodation. “Customer experience is everything,” he said. “We listen to our visitors’ opinions to create the most enjoyable environment we can.”

Sophisticated System

The ongoing successes at San-Fu and Flying Cow are indicative of the state of the agritourism sector around the country. It gained momentum in the years leading up to Taiwan’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 as farm operators changed tack amid pressures from agricultural imports. Around the same time the central government began to designate recreational agriculture areas to stimulate economic development. “Small farms often lack the funding and know-how needed for a transition to tourism, so government guidance and assistance with developing a collective image for them as a marketing strategy is crucial,” said Wu Ching-ching (吳菁菁), deputy chief of the Agro-industry Development and Recreation Division under the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agency of Rural Development and Soil and Water Conservation (ARDSWC).

New recreational agriculture zones continue to be designated, and with the addition of the newest area in Tainan City’s Dongshan District, there are now 109 around the country. In 2010 the government commissioned the Taiwan Leisure Farms Development Association (TLFDA) to evaluate individual leisure farms and issue certificates attesting to their quality in relation to metrics like whether they offer agriculture experiences or guided tours, in addition to those standards applied to all tourism operators, such as cleanliness and internet connectivity. In 2019 the association added a requirement that businesses specialize in at least one of 19 categories ranging from fruit to herbal medicine to aquaculture. “There are always newcomers to the sector, especially young people, and our standards provide them with a framework as well as ensuring a consistent level of quality,” said TLFDA CEO Yu Wen-horng (游文宏).

More than 350 farms around the country have been certified to date. Of these, 138 have also attained either one or both designations added in 2024 that assess sustainability and agri-food education, the former achieved through measures like recycling resources and saving energy and the latter through projects like reducing food loss and educating tourists about the cultures and traditions that give rise to locally sourced ingredients.

Leisure Network

Agricultural leisure farms make up a growing share of tourism to Taiwan. The sector has attracted approximately 600,000 international tourists annually from across Southeast Asia and the world. According to Yu, one in four Singaporean tourists in Taiwan choose to include visits to such farms on their itineraries. Taiwan’s top agritourism portal, called Agriezgo and operated by ARDSWC with content available in Chinese, English and Japanese, certainly helps, as does Farmtour Market, a similar site run by TLFDA.

Taiwan’s expertise in certifying and running leisure farms has provided an opportunity for knowledge sharing. TLFDA began working with Malaysia to build a system of its own in 2023; five farms have since been certified in the Southeast Asian nation. In the same year the Global Agritourism Network (GAN) was officially launched as a platform for owners and operators to interact with researchers and share mutual experience and best practices. In 2024 Taiwanese representatives, including Yu, attended the World Agritourism Congress co-organized by the network in Italy. The same year TLFDA established an international commission to facilitate such exchanges in agritourism and promote Taiwan’s leisure farms globally.

GAN, which now boasts 1,100 members from 115 countries, has substantially raised Taiwan’s leisure profile, especially after its president, Carla Barbieri, paid a visit to the country last October that included attendance at a conference on sustainable tourism. She toured 10 farms and stayed overnight at Flying Cow, where she witnessed the farm’s wastewater recycling practices, its work to create and maintain habitats with fallen timber and its use of cow dung as organic fertilizer. Impressed by the rich experiences Taiwan had to offer, Barbieri hoped to see Taiwan bid for the role of host to the Global Agritourism Conference organized by GAN in the near future. “Taiwan’s agritourism profile is on the rise,” said ARDSWC’s Wu. “That’s encouraging, as the sector raises operators’ income and attracts young entrepreneurs back to rural areas, as well as improving the environment.”

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw