Clad in shorts and sandals and wearing a necklace and sunscreen to work in her organic garden, Feng Hsiao-fei (馮小非) does not look like most farmers.
“Why must all farmers be so badly dressed? You can be a farmer and still have your own style,” said Feng, who’s been a farmer for eight years.
Born and raised in Taipei, Feng went to Nantou County to assist the people there after the Sept. 21 earthquake in 1999. However, although the reconstruction work was gradually completed, she realized that there was a fundamental problem that had not been resolved — agriculture.
Photo: Chen Yi-ching, Taipei Times
She persuaded farmers in the area to avoid using pesticides to create a better farming environment and started her own organic orange farm in the Xi Di Yao Agricultural Center in Jhongliao Township (中寮), Nantou County.
Starting as a complete novice, Feng is now completely at ease doing farmwork — including spotting bagworms eating away at fruit trees and shooing away Citrus long-horned beetles. Though some traditional farmers thought she was a fool, that didn’t discourage Feng. After eight years of hard work, Jhongliao Township now offers pesticide-free and export-grade produce.
A sociology graduate from Tunghai University, Feng said she noticed that the unequal development in cities and counties had a great impact on agriculture, and since the founding of the Xi Di Yao Agricultural Center, Feng has continued to keep a close eye on the development of the nation’s agriculture.
Last month, Feng, along with her friend Chiang Hui-hsien (蔣慧仙) and others, set up a Web site named “Up & Down Stream News & Market” that is devoted to agricultural causes and land issues.
The Web site seeks to link upstream producers with downstream consumers, Feng said, adding that “consumption of agricultural produce from a [nature] friendly environment could change the world.”
The Web site has enlisted 70 “co-founders,” she said.
It has an independent reporter for the news section, but it is also open to other writers, Feng said.
There are currently 200 registered writers, with 120 — about a third of whom are younger farmers — regularly contributing articles to the site, Feng said.
As for the site’s market section, Feng said she gives priority to produce from younger farmers and produce that is harder to market.
Feng said the major problem with the nation’s agriculture sector was the production and sales imbalance, which is why Jhongliao residents refused to harvest a surplus production of longan this year.
Feng said the problem is not that the issue cannot be solved, it’s because the Council of Agriculture does not want to solve the issue.
For instance, Japan produces different kinds of tangerines and oranges because the Japanese government has made an effort to differentiate the produce of different areas, she said.
Aside from solving the problem of a production imbalance, these farms can also be turned into ecological attractions when the trees bear fruit at different times, she said.
Feng said it was disheartening to see the council overlooking the advantages of Taiwan’s locally researched fruit species and letting the industry struggle on its own.
“Taiwan’s agriculture industry should be fun and vibrantly alive,” she said.
However, with conservative officials heading the council, “how can Taiwan’s agriculture sector come alive?” she asked.
Feng said she hoped the Web site could become a voice for the agricultural sector and a medium for farmers to find strength and support.
Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the