Organic rice growers shoulder the responsibility of nurturing agricultural talents! Yinchuan Sustainable Farm with Organic Life Camp

Organic rice growers shoulder the responsibility of nurturing agricultural talents! Yinchuan Sustainable Farm launched the Land Restoration Revolution with Organic Life Camp

When you come to Fuli Township, Hualien, Taiwan, you can see rice fields everywhere, and this is Frimi, which is one of the "three treasures of Fuli" in addition to Linden mushrooms and golden needles. Hualien has the largest organic planting area in Taiwan, about 2800 hectares, while Yinchuan Sustainable Farm is the largest organic rice grower in Taiwan, growing 680 hectares of organic rice a year. In fact, for Yinchuan, the connection with Hualien land is not only to plant rice in the field, but to take root in the ground through the "organic life camp."

25 years of organic rice struggle history! To avoid being contaminated by pesticides in neighboring fields and restore the land.

Yinchuan began to grow organic rice in 1997. Liang Meizhi, the old mistress, recalled that at first, when the organic farming method was used, all the insects came to their own land because they were still surrounded by agricultural fields dominated by spraying pesticides, and it was assumed that the harvest was poor. However, unable to watch the land gradually lose its nutrients under the use of chemical fertilizers, Yinchuan decided to continue to grow with this enthusiasm, while encouraging nearby farmers to start farming with organic farming.

"even if you don't use pesticides, the pesticides next door will be polluted as soon as the wind blows." Liang Mei-chih pointed out that the biggest obstacle to organic management at that time was the neighboring fields, so Yinchuan began to "restore" the habitual fields around it, expanding the organic planting area one by one, and gradually becoming the largest organic rice grower in Taiwan.

Held for eight consecutive years, Yinchuan promoted an organic life camp in Fuli.

"the farm land children have a great feeling for the land and the farmers. watching the land become hard under the customary agricultural law, they have a passion for organic implementation in their hearts." Liang Meizhi said that growing up in the countryside, he was a farmer himself, and he graduated from an agricultural college, so he launched this revolution called "organic".

In addition to starting from organic farming, Liang Meizhi also felt that the most difficult thing about being organic was "farmers' identification" and "consumers paying the bill." therefore, in 2013, she decided to take it as a "local enterprise" to run the first organic life camp, hoping to nurture more organic agricultural talents for Fuli, which has a unique agricultural environment.

"I want to be an organic farmer"! Liang Meizhi wants to train organic talents 20 years later.

"every year, the Organic Life Camp must protect the most potential farmers and improve rural development." Talking about why organic life camps are held, Liang Mei-chih excitedly says that many rural children in Fuli choose to develop in big cities, but even if they go to work as employees of companies in Taipei, they can only receive a meagre salary, "because most of them belong to this land." Therefore, Liang Meizhi's Organic Life Camp is packaged with different themes every year, inviting students from Fuli to attend.

Liang Meizhi recruited senior farmers from the production and marketing class in Yinchuan as lecturers to share their experiences from transplanting, planting to harvest, and the importance of promoting organic farming methods. At the Organic Life Camp, when students were asked, "who wants to be a farmer in the future?" Most people raised their hands excitedly and even shouted, "I want to be an organic farmer!" Thanks to Liang Meizhi's efforts, the advantages of organic agriculture are gradually deeply rooted in the hearts of these rich children. About 700 national primary and secondary school children participate in the Organic Life Camp every year, and since 2013, at least more than 5000 organic agricultural talents have been sown. They will take on the torch of lecturers on the stage in the future and continue to make efforts to promote local and organic agriculture.

Not only organic farmers, but also a group of loyal customers in Yinchuan.

However, the organic life camp wants to cultivate not only farmers, but also consumers who support organic farming. Liang Meizhi said that the biggest obstacle to the promotion of organic is to change farmers, and then to change consumers. Taking rice as an example, she said: "the price of rice is very cheap, so that whether rice is organic is not valued by consumers, and there is no market for farmers to be organic." Pointing out the importance of consumer support to the promotion of organic agriculture, she said that it would be difficult to promote organic agriculture if the heads of consumers and farmers were not connected.

In addition, Liang Meizhi does not expect all the school children who participate in the organic life camp to become farmers when they grow up, but as an opportunity to change consumers. During the organic life camp, Yinchuan will teach organic agriculture how to change the environment and the health benefits of eating organic farming. Liang Meizhi believes that it can not only change the way students think about organic agriculture, but also get their families to support them when they share it with their parents when they get home. Through the organic life camp, grow a group of consumers and supporters of organic agriculture.