The Council of Agriculture yesterday unveiled a new program aimed at enticing young people to the agricultural sector and to consider pursuing it as a career.
Appearing barefoot at the press conference yesterday to highlight the council's call, council Chairman Su Jia-chyuan (
Su said that the council's upcoming 42 wandervogel camps -- modeled on an 1896 movement in Germany wherein youngsters were encouraged to get close to nature -- were named after the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore's poetry collection Stray Birds.
Su said that the average age of farmers in Taiwan was high and that young blood was needed to breathe fresh energy into the sector.
The three-to-four-day long wandervogel camps, which will commence on Aug. 1, will mainly target those aged between 18 and 35, with various types of camps offered at seven leisure farms, organic farms, livestock farms and aquacultural sites.
The participants will gain experience at the camps in the harvesting of bamboo shoots and tea, learn flower arrangement, as well as tea ceremony and aquaculture.
If they show real interest after the camps, the council plans to help them fulfill their dreams.
The council hopes to attract 1,000 young people over the next three years to join the agricultural sector, Su said.
"Stray birds refer to wanderers," Su said, "and we hope the `wandering birds' in Taiwan will stay with agriculture."
He added that many youngsters think going into agriculture means hard work, but it is not necessarily the case.
Lai Ching-sung (
Lai called his return to farming "a courageous move toward his dream."
A 42-year-old herbal farmer echoed Lai's words. A former pastry chef at the Lai Lai Hotel, Chang Ching-chin (張清進) said he spent the past 16 years cultivating his herbal fields in Dahsi Township (大溪) in Taoyuan County.
His biggest achievement during these years is being able to enjoy an evening bicycle ride with his family on the ridges between the fields, he said.
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