Because of the government subsidies to revive fallow land, the output of young soybeans — immature soybeans known as maodou in Chinese — in Tainan County’s Sinshih Township (新市) has nearly doubled this year from the previous year, a representative of local farmers said.
Lee Chao-tang (李朝塘), chief executive of the Sinshih Township Farmers’ Association, said the land area used for young soybean plantation has doubled to 100 hectares. He attributed the growth to the government’s subsidies for farmers to grow crops on fallow land.
To convince farmers to grow maodou, the association has also taken efforts to develop new soybean-based products, Lee said.
He said they have successfully developed products like maodou noodles, maodou ice cream and maodou sauce. The ice cream has turned out to be a big hit in the local catering market, Lee said.
The emerging soybean industry, which is helping increase demand for the crops, has raised farmers’ interest in growing the young soybeans, he added.
According to Lee, Sinshih was once one of the major soybean production areas in Taiwan after the crop was first planted between 1986 and 1988.
Soybeans were once one of the main sources of protein for local people. At the crop’s peak, 500 to 600 hectares were planted with soybeans in Sinshih, Lee said.
Planting of the crop, however, decreased many years ago because of the high cost of harvesting the soybeans by hand and the construction of the Southern Taiwan Science Park, which turned some of the area’s farmland into high-tech factories.
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