Wearing a red checkered shirt and a baseball cap, Lai Chiao-yan (賴嬌燕) works in a garden by the Lanyang Bridge in Yilan County. It’s been eight years since her return from Nagano Yatsunou Central Agricultural Practices University and Lai’s insistence on organic farming has paid off with a bountiful harvest.
Lai, who was born in the 1970s, wasn’t always interested in agriculture. She was initially involved with her family’s recycling business and the first time she dabbled in gardening was in junior high school when she planted some chrysanthemums in the yard.
She was enrolled in the Early Child Education Department during high school and then attended a language school in Japan in preparation for studies in photography. However, because of the high costs, she dropped photography and chose to study at the less-expensive Agricultural University. Of the 72 people at the university, Lai was the only foreigner.
During her time in Nagano, Lai had to “intern” out in the fields before sunset and went jogging, mountain climbing and skiing to stay fit.
“There’s true gender equality in the agricultural field. There were more girls than boys in the class and the girls were the main labor force in the village. The men just added their voices,” she said, pointing to her biceps.
Returning to her home in Wujie Township (五結) having learned about agricultural methods that emphasize ecological balance, Lai began planting. However, she only harvested 300g of mustard greens after three-and-a-half months and only made NT$3,000 that whole year, despite planting more than 30 varieties of vegetables.
Lai was convinced the land was barren, but she refused to use fertilizers or chemicals and sought her own solution. She gathered Chinese medicinal residue that did not contain heavy metals or chemicals, and fermented the -residue with bean dregs and weeds. She then took the concoction and spread it over the land.
“Now I have earthworms burrowing through, loosening the earth and their excrement is the best natural fertilizer,” Lai said.
Lai is currently farming 1.6 hectares for grain and 0.5 hectares for vegetables, and the quality of her produce using her organic agricultural methods is no worse than normal plots of land, she said.
She insisted on drying grain under the sun and not sending it through drying machines, claiming that indica rice dried this way tastes as good as japonica rice.
Aside from working in the fields, Lai also busies herself with the production of black-bean soy sauce, Japanese-style miso, Korean kimchi and salted vegetables to pay for family expenses. Of the NT$200,000 her endeavors bring in annually, 50 percent goes to her brother and of the remaining NT$100,000, NT$60,000 goes to pay insurance. For the rest of her expenses, she lives on agricultural income and assistance from her brother.
Though it’s hard to make a living by farming, Lai’s passion for the vocation has not decreased. She plans to write books to follow up on Farm Manor, which was released last year, and encourage more people to take up organic farming.
Farm Manor was the product of three years of filming the garden by Lai and her brother, Lai Chun-wang (賴君旺), and detailed the growth of their plants from tiny shoots to fully developed vegetables. It was an instant hit.
“Farming starts with observation,” Lai said, adding that the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon and how nature works, all have an influence on plants.
“As long as someone says the rice and vegetables I harvested taste good, that’s what motivates me to go on,” Lai said.
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