Tyi Sheng Co was one of the Taiwanese companies hard hit by the 2008 global financial crisis, but Tyi Sheng chairman Chang Yu-ho (張鈺和) did not want to see his employees laid off because of poor business.
So he did something unusual to help them, despite having put them on unpaid leave: He rented a farm on which they could grow organic vegetables.
Some of the employees, who found themselves in the position of being “accidental farmers,” chose not to go back to their previous jobs after the crisis was over.
It was a flexible and innovative way in which a high-tech industry company helped its furloughed employees after putting them through financial difficulties.
Tyi Sheng specializes in providing heavy machinery services to high-tech companies at Hsinchu Science Park, the hub of the nation’s high-tech industry and home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and other big names.
When the financial crisis hit three years ago, Tyi Sheng’s business plummeted. Chang then rented a 15,000-ping (49,590m2) plot of land and encouraged his furloughed employees to grow vegetables. Some of the revenue from the produce was given to the “new farmers” as their salaries and the project also turned out to be a new revenue source for the company.
The company’s -machinery--service business has since returned to normal, but its “furlough farm” continues to generate an income of about NT$300,000 a month and has received certification as an organic farm.
Ten of the employees who worked on the farm said they would stay there instead of returning to their old jobs.
On one sunny day, Chang, 48, worked with his employees on the farm, weeding, picking worms from vegetable leaves, chatting and laughing. Few outsiders would have thought that Chang, sporting rain boots, is a multimillionaire whose company offers cranes and other machinery services to many major semiconductor, LED and wafer manufacturers in Hsinchu.
His parents were farmers who taught him never to till the land because it was a low-income, low-prestige job. Instead, he was told he should seek his future outside of rural areas. So, at age 28, Chang started his business as leader of a three-person team working for the Industrial Technology Research Institute.
Within 12 years, Chang’s -business had expanded into a 300-strong company serving not just Hsinchu-area high-tech companies, but also those in China and Russia.
Chang, a vegetarian, began growing his own vegetables seven years ago on a plot he rented in Jhudong (竹東), Hsinchu County.
He said he did so to satisfy his own personal wish to eat “self-grown” vegetables on the grounds they should be cleaner and healthier than what supermarkets sold.
The 2008 global financial crisis, which prompted him to reduce his staff by 80 percent, gave him an opportunity to try out his idea of inviting his employees on unpaid leave to grow vegetables.
“Heaven perhaps showed us some favors — our harvests that year were exceptionally good and the income just made up for the employees’ salaries,” Chang said.
Just half a year later, business was back and most of the “farming” employees returned to the office to continue their jobs.
Lin Shih-min (林士敬) and Tseng Neng-yen (曾能演) were among those who chose not to resume their employment and stayed on as farmers. Both of them said they used to be in poor health and that their new lifestyles — tilling the land and being vegetarians — improved their health.
“I’m much happier now that I do not have to hurry to and from the office, and I feel much more relaxed,” Lin said.
Chang said he plans to expand the Tyi Sheng Organic Farm to 55,000 ping by renting another 40,000 ping. He added he would sell the produce 20 percent cheaper than market prices so that more people would be able to enjoy healthy produce from his farm.
None were happier than his parents, who said with broad smiles that “after being away for so many years, he’s coming back to the land.”
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods