Mon, Apr 04, 2011 page2

• FEATURE: Young farmers find hurdles along the way

  GREENER GRASS: While one young farmer’s parents were initially puzzled over his choice of job, they have always backed him in his quest to operate a farm

  • By Chung Li-hua / Staff Reporter
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  After passing through the Hsuehshan Tunnel and driving down to the Lanyang Plain in Yilan, fields are filled not with stalks of grain, but signposts advertising land or farm sheds that are up for sale.

  Despite the growing number of mansion-like houses that are going up on farmland and the area being something of a city dwellers’ back garden, Yilan is still home to a few people who are starting out in their farming careers.

  Chen Chun-hao (陳君浩), 27, who hails from a family of farmers, said he was worried that “Yilan might not have any more farmland.”

  

  Chen Chun-hao, 27, who went back to farm work after finishing his military service, works in a paddy field in Yilan County on March 27.

  Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times

  Chen, who returned to his hometown after completing his military service, said that of the 200-plus elderly farmers who are registered with the Farmer’s Association, you could count on one hand the number who had young men to take over from them.

  Despite generations of farmers preceding him, Chen has his own ideas about how to run things. The low price they get for rice, for example, is primarily the result of middlemen, and to change that, he has decided to sell the rice himself.

  Chen also designed his own rice sacks. The next step is to find people who are willing to buy his rice.

  He has also faced difficulties because he does not use the Internet to sell his products, as Internet shoppers like to compare prices, which would not help Chen realize his goal.

  Chen tried going directly to stores. However, none of them wanted to sell rice that came directly from farmers, as the stock they had on their shelves came from wholesalers. He also tried direct marketing and, at the risk of being chased off by the police, he even tried selling his produce on the streets, with two pots of cooked rice for sampling.

  Like Chen, the problem of production and sales has troubled 27-year-old Hsiung Kuo-chuan (熊國荃).

  A farmer in Yilan’s Sansing Township (三星), Hsiung, who was born in Taipei, could only sell his produce to regular customers or at farmer’s markets.

  Although Hsiung’s profits from the produce he sold himself were two to three times more than when he sold to wholesalers, he always worried about where he would find customers for the next harvest.

  The youngest farmer in the town, Hsiung became interested in farming after helping out at a farm at the Chinese Culture University, where students tended small vegetable plots.

  Though Hsiung’s vocational choice puzzled his parents, they were still willing to help him out when he needed it.

  Of his two years in Yilan so far, Hsiung said that his confidence in agriculture had risen and fallen, but he had promised to give himself three to five years to see if it is possible for him to continue in his chosen vocation.

  Hsieh Cheng-hung (謝政宏), a graduate of Fu Jen Catholic University’s Department of Life Sciences, didn’t share Hisung’s or Chen’s sales problems as he worked with production and sales students.

  Freed from these concerns, Hsieh said he was planning to plant vegetables and fruit, which sell better than grains.

  Hsieh said he had never thought that he would be a farmer and had only returned home to take up this line of work after he had difficulties finding a different job. Not content with the 0.3 hectares of farmland his family owned, Hsieh rented 10 hectares, stretching from Lotung (羅東) to Sanshing, and turned over all the planting to agricultural sub-contractors.

  Now, Hsieh goes to “work” every day from 9am to 5pm, making rounds and inspecting his farmland.

  However, life as a farmer is not all rosy.

  Chen said two young men from Keelung who planned to get into farming heard his story and came to visit him, hoping to get some advice.

  Chen said he spoke honestly about his experiences and told the men to think twice about becoming farmers, saying that “young people can give agricultural life a try, but it shouldn’t be treated as a vocation.”

  “Without strong economic and technical support from your family, the road is a hard one to walk,” he said.
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