Mon, Oct 17, 2011 page2

• Events aim to create link between farmers, public

  GET TOGETHER: A university student has become closer to her dad as she helps sell his homegrown rice, while other students are using the Web to sell farmers’ goods

  • By Lee I-chia / Staff Reporter
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  A farmers’ market and gathering called “2011 Bow to the Land,” held its second event at the National Taiwan University campus over the weekend in the hope of creating a direct link between farmers and the public.

  The event was founded by the Hao Ran Foundation and organized by farming advocacy group Taiwan Rural Front along with student groups.

  The Bow to the Land events began two years ago when a group of environmentalists and farmers gathered more than a dozen civic groups to discuss issues at a series of events that included lectures, screenings of documentaries and a farmers’ market.

  The events were also aimed at bringing the public closer to the land and farmers so that they could understand agriculture and their relationship with food, while supporting small farms and environmental protection.

  Hao Ran Foundation executive Chen Yi-chun (陳怡君) said the idea came from people doing agricultural recovery work in the south after Typhoon Morakot struck in August 2009.

  They realized that to ensure stable and fair incomes for farmers, it was necessary to driectly link farmers with consumers, she said.

  Chen said what differentiates the Bow to the Land events from other weekend farmers’ market is that they not only link farmers with consumers, but they also allow experienced groups and specialists to discuss land rights issues, land expropriation, agricultural development, community supported agriculture and other social issues with the public.

  University student Ilona Wu (吳佳玲), who began helping her father sell his homegrown rice at the Bow to Land farmers’ market last year, said her father, being the eldest son, had no choice but to accept his father’s wish that he become a farmer.

  “When by chance I heard him say: ‘If I could start my life again, I wouldn’t be a farmer’ a couple of years ago, I was kind of shocked,” she said.

  She said she had heard for many years about the low price of rice and decided to help her father sell his crops directly to consumers, starting with onions on her online blog and rice at the farmers’ market.

  “While selling the produce to consumers, we had the chance to get to know each other,” Wu said, “We realized what consumers are looking for and they can rest assured that they know where their food comes from, who grew it and what methods were used.”

  Tung Chih-wei (童智偉), a university graduate working with the Kuo-pen Mountain Farmers Assembly, a group of farmers who grow eco-friendly crops in Greater Taichung’s Tungshih Township (東勢), said many farmers only have the time and energy to farm and know nothing about retail side.

  He and some other young people started to help sell their food through the Internet and social networks.

  “By selling directly to the consumers, farmers now actually receive about twice the amount of income that they used to get from selling to dealers,” he said, “And the market price is about the same for the customers.”
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