“Taiwan really is a treasure island, with so many different kinds of fruit to feed its population of more than 23 million people,” Kaohsiung banana farmer Liu Chi-ho (劉吉和) said during a book launch held at a booth for Taiwan fruit at this year’s Taiwan International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo yesterday.
The stories of 12 Taiwanese fruit farmers and manufacturers of fruit products are the focus of a new book that focuses on fruit in Taiwan titled Fruitful Taiwan (果然台灣：種出台灣的幸福), which was published last week.
“When I ask my students to play a game of connected words using fruit grown in Taiwan, they invariably leave the class feeling very fortunate to live here. A total of 35 students were able to name a fruit without a single repeat,” said Lan Yen-chiu (藍艷秋), co-author and an associate professor in the department of leisure resources and green industries at Leader University in Greater Tainan.
Photo: Tung Chen-kuo, Taipei Times
“The 10 fruit introduced in the book are all non-native species, but the fact that they grow so well in Taiwan amazes foreign fruit importers,” co-author Goya Lan (藍麗娟) said.
“That’s because Taiwanese farms have unique conditions and many hard-working farmers,” she added.
Liu said he grew up surrounded by bananas grown by his father and grandfather, and he has always been proud of their achievements — so much so that he gave up a job offer from a telecommunications company and has now worked on the farm for more than 35 years.
“What makes Taiwan’s bananas special is that most are grown in a tropical climate and harvested two or three times a year. However, Taiwan’s bananas have to also deal with winter and they take about twice the time to ripen, which allows them to become sweeter and tastier,” he said.
In a constantly changing world, Taiwanese fruit farmers face tough challenges, including a highly competitive global market, the fact that many farmers are already elderly, frequent natural disasters and the scattered nature of farmland in Taiwan, Liu said.
However, with the help of the government’s species breeding projects, fruit farmers have made many improvements over the years and now good quality fruit is available all year round, he said.
Stone Lee (李銘煌) founder of Spring Trading Co first began making fresh fruit additive-free popsicles with ripe fruit, boiled water and sugar in Taitung County’s Luye Township (鹿野) three years ago.
Although a resident of Taipei, Lee frequently spends time at his holiday home in Luye.
He said he often receives ripe fruit from neighboring farmers that they are unable to sell to wholesalers and which would rot if not eaten quickly.
Lee said he had two ideas when he started his business: One was to use lots of local fruit and the other was to be manpower-intensive to help create jobs.
Currently, he has a staff of 10 workers. Some are from a local tea plantation that shut down a few years ago because of competition from cheap imported tea.
“In the beginning, I thought I must be crazy to insist on these ideas, because it was too expensive for customers to accept,” Lee said. “But I thought, if I produce something that even I wouldn’t want to eat, then it would be pointless to keep doing it.”
The popsicles are now selling in various retail outlets across the nation, Lee said.
“I decided to stick to what I thought was right, in the belief that eventually more people would come round to my point of view,” he said.
“I think people living in the city might be rich in terms of having the amount of money they have, but they often buy fake food, such as milk tea without real milk,” Lee said. “Fruit farmers are rich because of the excellent quality of life they enjoy, including clean air and water. City residents can help support farmers by buying their fruit.”
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