Sixty-year-old Hsu Hsin-chuan (徐辛泉) grew up on a mountainside farm in Miaoli County. Back then, there was no electricity. The little boy would catch fireflies and put them in a glass bottle to illuminate his room while he wrote his homework at night.
Hsu returned six years ago, and started growing banana plants to provide a favorable habitat for his childhood beetle pals, which had vanished from the area after the soil was polluted by herbicides and pesticides.
Now the bugs are back, and Hsu has carts of bananas and other fresh fruits and vegetables to sell at the 248 Market (248農學市集), a weekend farmers’ market held in a parking lot in a bustling alley off Zhongxiao East Road in Taipei.
Opened in July, the market is the brainchild of Yang Ju-men (楊儒門).
Formerly dubbed the “rice bomber” by the media for planting explosive devices in trains, parks and telephone booths to draw the government’s attention to the plight of local farmers, the angry young man became a farmers’ rights advocate following his release from prison in June 2007 after then president Chen Shui-bian pardoned him.
He has traveled the country visiting smallholder farmers who reject the use of artificial chemicals on the soil. Currently, there are 16 such agricultural producers hawking their wares at the market.
“The primary aim of the market is to communicate and build trust between consumers and growers … The initial challenge for the farmers is to learn to speak for themselves after plowing fields for 50, 60 years, just like their fathers did before them,” Yang said.
Li Yan-sen (李衍森) is learning to share his years of experience in cultivating native medicinal plants such as Chinese mahogany and ailanthus prickly ash.
“Nature has great wisdom. But it won’t tell you. You have to observe and discover it,” said the farmer from Taitung County who uses fermented taro and cassava as compost and simple farming tools such as rakes and shoulder poles to till the land.
Seasonal, fresh vegetables and fruits from several Aboriginal tribes in Hualien, Nantou and Hsinchu counties that have converted to organic farming with assistance from World Vision Taiwan can be found at the market.
Spring Trading Company’s (春一枝, www.fruit-ice.com.tw) fair trade ice lollies are popular with shoppers. The manufacturer ensures that fruit growers in Taitung benefit from a system that promotes sustainability and pays a fair price for their produce.
Red on Tree (在欉紅, www.redontree.com) makes high-quality jams with an emphasis on exploring indigenous varieties of fruit, such as cape gooseberry and guava, that have much stronger aromas than cultivated strains.
“Known as the poor man’s fruit, cape gooseberries are part of many people’s childhood memories ... Those cape gooseberries are the best free fruit one could find on the roadside,” said staff member Wilma Ku (顧瑋).
Other participants at the 248 Market promote social causes.
Initiated by a retired elementary school principal as a way to help Aboriginal children and elders in Wulai Township, Taipei County, Fushan Grange (福山農莊, www.eq.org.tw) collaborates with small farmers and runs a community-supported agriculture operation that aims to build mutual support between growers and consumers.
While selling a fresh catch from her hometown, Keelung’s Badouzih (八斗子) fishing port, NGO worker-turned-entrepreneur Hsueh Li-ni (薛麗妮) is eager to talk about her protest against Taiwan Power Company’s plan to construct a port for unloading coal and renew the Shenao (深澳) coal-fired power station.
Over the past couple of years, farmers’ markets have taken root in Taiwan’s metropolises. There is the Breeze Market (微風市集, blog.breezemarket.com.tw) in Kaohsiung County, and the Hope Market (合樸農學市集, www.hopemarket.com.tw) and NCHU Organic Farmers’ Market (興大有機農夫市集, organic.nchu.edu.tw) in Taichung City.
The markets are not only sites of trade but venues that serve as public forums frequented by social activists, environmental groups and concerned citizens, Yang said.
The answer to the social and economic problems facing farmers who have seen their livelihoods threatened from increased competition and rising costs is to cut dependency on wholesale dealers by finding who and where the consumers are, Yang said. Farmers’ markets do that and allow producers to maintain a stable and direct outlet for their crops.
As for now, the 248 Market has found an additional venue at Taipei Kaiping Culinary School (台北市開平餐飲學校), and opens on Sundays. Like the Pacific Construction Co (太平洋建設), which doesn’t seek rental for the parking lot, the school lets Yang and his fellow farmers use its sports field for free.
Yang is confident of finding more space for expansion. “You have to have a capitalist’s mind and a socialist’s heart,” the 31-year-old said.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
RSS