High in the hills of Yang Ming Shan, under the shadow of ICRT radio's massive transmission dishes, Mr Sheng struggles with a recalcitrant hose that does not want to stay attached to the tap. Late afternoon has brought a fresh breeze, mitigating the heat of the day, but Sheng still looks hot and bothered.
Inspecting his pudgy hands with faint bewilderment, he is reminded that farm work does not come naturally to him. "Look at these blisters," he says, shaking his head. During the week, Sheng works in an insurance office, but for the last two years, he and his wife have come here one afternoon a week to live the pastoral dream.
At the moment, however, he doesn't seem to be particularly enjoying it.
"We used to come with the children," Sheng says. "But now they have grown up, they don't come with us anymore." In a plastic bag at the edge of his small plot sits his meager harvest: A couple of cucumbers and a bag full of edible amaranth. "It hardly repays the effort."
Nevertheless, he still comes back every weekend it doesn't rain.
A SLICE OF COUNTRY LIFE
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
City gardens were first developed in Taiwan under the auspices of the Council of Agriculture in 1994 based on the Klien Garden, a concept pushed by the German government of the 19th century to provide the residents of tightly packed tenements with a source of food and healthful activity.
It is being promoted in Taiwan for much the same reason, aiming to tap into the agricultural idyll still entertained by many Taiwanese, many of whom are little more than a generation separated from a life on the land. According to Kuo Chun-kai (郭俊開), a technical officer in charge of city farms at the Council of Agriculture, "people are lining up to get a piece of land in a city garden." There are nine such gardens scheduled for completion this year and 60 in operation around the island.
Luo Yung-ming (羅永銘) of the Hsintien Farmers Association says that although their city garden is still some months away from completion ? work has been delayed by recent heavy rains - they have received 30 applications for plots.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Even National Taiwan University is getting in on the act, hoping to open a city garden aimed primarily at staff and students in Ankeng (安坑) on the southwestern outskirts of Taipei. The land is currently being used for pasture.On a warm Sunday evening in Luotung, at the southern end of Chunching Street with its scattering of down-at-heel massage parlors and auto repair shops, the Luotung Farmers Association building does not look very inviting. But behind its concrete bulk, around two hectares of land have been given over to cultivation by local residents. Neatly arranged strips of vegetables and colorful straw scarecrows, one with the words "modern farmer" written on it, testify to the dedication of the part-time farmers at the Luotung City Garden.
"It's just that I am retired now," says one elderly man as he skillfully turned the earth and built up the banks of his vegetable plot. "So I have nothing else to do." Working barefoot, a tattered business shirt clings to his back, transparent with sweat and stained with earth; his limbs leathery from the sun, the man might have been a professional farmer.
A few strips down, another man is taking no risks with the evening sun. Shaded under a grass hat, his arms covered in sleeve protectors, he works at his melon trellis. "I'm just here for a couple of hours," he says. "In the afternoon it is simply too hot. And in the evening there are too many mosquitoes."
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
So why does he do it? "You don't know what kind of chemicals are on the vegetables you buy in the shops," he says. "Here the farmers association encourages the use of organic fertilizer."
Setting fire to some withered vines, dead leaves and newspapers, a third man encapsulates the oddly schizophrenic attitude of the farmers ? a mixture of pride and denigration for what they do. "It's really hard work," he says. "Nobody wants to do this kind of thing." He has been doing this for five years, and although there are a number of families about, toiling away, their presence does not absolutely contradict the man's statement, for, oddly, none express any overt joy in the activity.
A NATURAL CLASSROOM
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
Tourism and education were aspects of the original three-stage plan to enrich urban life with an appreciation of Taiwan's rural roots. According to Liu Ming-tse (
"This is largely due to lack of initiative," he says, while also acknowledging that running an educational program for children and maintaining the farm stretches him to the limit. "During the day I take classes, then in the evening I assist city residents on their plots.""The busiest time for me is during the week, rather than on weekends," Liu says. School groups visit, some exclusively to enjoy the natural surroundings and others for a schedule of classes, varying with the season. Some of his customers, like the people in Luotung, are pretty knowledgeable about agriculture, but many have little or no experience.
For Taipei dwellers, privately run city gardens such as Liu's offer an ideal opportunity to get a taste of rustic life, for with land rented by the month, there is little financial risk. City gardens run by farmers associations generally require a longer commitment, typically one year, and contracts are usually for around 120 square feet, nearly four times that offered by Liu.
But not all the farms are popular. According to Ho Fa-chi (何發吉) the proprietor of Hochu Tea Garden (荷鋤茗園), where the Shengs come to cultivate their six ping (about 3.4 square meters) of land every weekend, the number of would-be farmers has fallen off in recent years.
"Not many of the plots are cultivated by city residents anymore. The freshness of the experience has worn off for many," Ho says. So he is directing his own efforts in a new direction ? toward children's education.
Liu and Ho both see the development of their city gardens in terms of creating added value through educational and leisure programs especially targeted at school children. At a cost of NT$200 to NT$300 per child, the farms offer a chance for children to get close to nature in a safe environment. It is also more lucrative for Liu, who provides a much more personalized range of services than the farmers associations.
"Many of the things the children come into contact with were familiar to their parents," Liu says. With a collection of jars and display boxes, Liu keeps a class of primary school children rapt, barely able to keep their excitement under control when Liu pulls a "wire worm" from the stomach of a praying mantis.
"I know what that is," says a little girl when Liu produces a specimen jar, "because my daddy used to bread silkworms." Her knowledge sets her apart from the other children, many of whom have never seen that most quintessentially Chinese insect.
For the older students, Liu even offers a chance to explore the little river that runs though his land. "Some of the teachers find this a little too exciting," Liu says, "but the children love it." This activity, like digging up and baking sweet potatoes, making bamboo flutes or collecting fish, were a part of the childhood of many of their parents. "It builds an appreciation of Taiwan's rural heritage," Liu says.
PROGRAM SET TO GROW
According to Tsai Yang-cheng (蔡養正), the assistant director of the National Taiwan University Experimental Farm, the university is well placed to provide residents of Taipei with an urban farm facility. The land on which the facility is to be built is currently used as pasture. Tsai says that in addition to the actual farm area, the university has had long-term plans to open up other areas of the experimental farm to visitors. "This way, we can offer a wide range of activities. We already have an outlet for the production of our experimental farm, such as fresh milk," Tsai says. Longer-range plans include the conversion of the current irrigation ditch into an area for waterside activities.
The university seems well set to create the first city garden that combines leisure facilities with agricultural plots. Private operators such as Liu and Ho say they have been hampered by strict land-use regulations in making their venues more comfortable.
When Ho gave up a career as a computer engineer to take over his family land in 1992, there were "no laws in place" regarding the establishment of city gardens and associated structures. Now laws exist, but he says, "The entry barrier [set up by the government] is too high. They have not taken into consideration the actual architectural needs of setting up such a farm [in highly developed Taipei]."
Despite some procedural problems, Kuo of the COA is very positive about the future of city gardens and sees strong development in the future. But Liu warns that he does not see the government pushing the educational aspect of urban garden development as hard as it should. "Education is the key element in the long-term preservation of our environment," he says. Currently there are only four city gardens under the COA focused on education.
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