| It Needn’t Always Be Rice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Cai Jia-shan Translated by Tang Yau-yang Photos by Huang Shi-ze | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Native grains, beans and other crops used to grow abundantly throughout the countryside in Taiwan. The calories and nutrition they provided enabled many Taiwanese to remain self-sufficient during bygone years of poverty. But free agricultural trading policies throughout the world have changed that. Now, large quantities of all sorts of agricultural products are regularly imported into Taiwan, suppressing their domestic counterparts. The people on the island no longer have control over their own food supply. Rice, fruit and vegetables still occupy a major place in Taiwan’s agricultural landscape, but some citizens are now working to revive the cultivation of other traditional crops. The government has even implemented programs for reestablishing these suppressed foods. Will this renaissance grow and flourish as hoped?
It was early spring, and we were visiting Dongshi, Jiayi County, southern Taiwan. We were standing on what used to be a vast expanse of arid, salty land, but which is now more than ten hectares (24.7 acres) of golden wheat. Hairy wheat stalks waved to and fro as we admired the scene. “Dongshi is in the middle of nowhere, and it used to attract attention only when it flooded. Now, we’re gathered here today to attend a one-of-a-kind concert—in the middle of this vast wheat field,” announced Wu Shu-fang (吳淑芳), director of the Sustainable Development Association of Rural Towns in Jiayi County. “I’m thrilled to see so many of you here,” she continued, obviously overcome with emotion. Taiwanese are accustomed to seeing rice plants growing in the countryside, not wheat. In fact, the acreage dedicated to wheat production in Taiwan has totaled no more than a hundred hectares (247 acres) per year for each of the last 15 years. Even agricultural officials said that Taiwan was just not suitable for wheat cultivation. But Wu tells a different story. “Decades ago, this area used to have lots of wheat fields,” she recalled. Land use statistics confirm her memory: During the period of Japanese rule (1895–1945), the acreage devoted to wheat cultivation in Taiwan once reached 6,700 hectares. This was followed by an all-time high of 25,000 hectares in 1960. Like Wu, Cai Yi-hong (蔡一宏), a farm owner attending the concert, remembers those days. He was a small child back in the 1960s, and he loved to pull pranks on other children by slipping an ear of wheat into their pants legs. Somehow, the wheat always worked its way up the leg. “Usually by the time you noticed it, the wheat had reached your thigh, and you had to take off your pants to get it out,” Cai recounted with a big grin as he savored those moments years before. Those fond memories are the reason that when Cai decided to take up farming four years ago, his first choice was to raise wheat. It also just so happened at that time that Adama Shih (施明煌), of the Rejoice Bread Workshop, was pushing for the resumption of wheat cultivation in Taiwan. The two men hit it off right away. They struck an agreement whereby Cai would plant wheat and Shih would buy it. The arrangement has been a win-win: Cai gets to plant what he loves and relive his childhood dreams, and Shih gets the wheat he needs for his bakery—as well as the chance to advance his plan to bring non-rice grain cultivation back to Taiwan. Cai convinced neighboring farmers to join in, and they helped convert the idle land on which the concert was being held into fields of golden wheat. Shih has persuaded farmers in other parts of Taiwan to take up wheat cultivation as well. Other crops, such as soybeans, are also gaining momentum. All told, contract wheat farming for the Rejoice Bread Workshop exceeded 200 hectares in 2013. “This is proof that it is possible to bring back non-rice grain cultivation,” Shih said. He has worked hard for the revival movement, and now he can see a glimmer of hope, despite all the difficulties and ridicule he has encountered along the way. Two hundred hectares is hardly one percent of the peak acreage in 1960; an agricultural official even commented that it was like nothing at all. But for Shih and his fellow devotees of the non-rice grain renaissance, 200 hectares is a great indicator of hope.
The decline of diversity Once upon a time, the agricultural landscape in Taiwan was quite diversified. In addition to rice, all sorts of grains and other crops were abundant on the island. The dazzling spectrum of crops included sorghum, corn, wheat, peanuts, sesame, Job’s tears, adzuki beans, mung beans, black soybeans, sweet potatoes, and more. Most of these crops are now produced at vastly reduced levels. Yu Ren-sheng (余仁聖) was a witness to the abundance and diversity of those days gone by. The Yu Shun-feng Store, founded by his family in 1956 in Puzi, Jiayi County, dealt in assorted crops grown by farmers nearby. During harvest season, Yu, then a youngster, would help out at the family store. He was responsible for weighing and pricing the crops to be purchased from the farmers. “Their line started at the front of the store and went out quite a ways,” he remembered. Having grown up in an agricultural community, Yu feels a deep emotional connection to the land and the crops that grow on it. He took over the family business after completing his military service, but by that time most grains were being imported. “I was really sorry to see the vitality in the countryside evaporate. Agriculture seemed to have lost its hope and future,” he lamented. According to Yu, the decline started when Taiwan was severely damaged by Typhoon Ellen on August 7, 1959. The huge agricultural loss led to rising imports of grains, beans and other crops. Then in 1984, in an effort to relieve the pressure of an oversupply of rice, the government instituted guaranteed prices to purchase feed corn and sorghum. However, the cultivation of these subsidized crops squeezed not just rice, the intended target, but other crops as well. “Crops such as sesame and mung beans were labor intensive and not very profitable,” Yu noted. “Farmers were getting old, so everyone began planting sorghum and feed corn instead. We ended up with a monoculture.” In 1997, the government started to implement a fallow-land policy in preparation for joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). This approach gradually lowered agricultural production even more. Even sorghum and feed corn production eventually dropped. After Taiwan joined the WTO in 2002, production of everything other than rice, fruit and vegetables was virtually wiped out by imports—the only exceptions were sweet potatoes, dietary corn, peanuts, and adzuki beans, the latter two being protected by tariff rate quotas. “It’s a pity that cultivation of these crops disappeared from Taiwan,” said Professor Warren Kuo (郭華仁) of the Department of Agronomy at National Taiwan University. He pointed out that the acreage for grains, legumes and tubers in the 1960s routinely exceeded 450,000 hectares (1,737 square miles) per year. That figure has declined to less than 60,000 hectares (231 square miles) today. Taiwan Rural Front spokeswoman Cai Pei-hui (蔡培慧) attributed the disappearance of these crops from Taiwan to four factors. First was the pressure from abroad to sell agricultural products to Taiwan. Second, with rice exports dropping, the government encouraged the growing of more economic crops such as vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Third, the food preferences of consumers shifted away from traditional foods to vegetables and meat. And fourth, the high labor cost of cultivating traditional foods and their low economic value marginalized those crops.
Diversity gives way to dependence Soybeans, wheat, and corn are important crops in international agricultural trade. They are also the top three agricultural products that Taiwan purchases from abroad. In 2012, for example, Taiwan imported 2,340,000 tons of soy, 1,380,000 tons of wheat, and 4,380,000 tons of corn. The country’s wheat purchases exceeded its rice production. “Dining tables in Taiwan used to be dominated by rice, but that has changed to a mixture of rice and wheat noodles over the past half century,” explained Liu Zhi-wei (劉志偉) in his book, Dining Revolution in Taiwan: Noodle Culture and the Baking Industry. In 1950, according to the book, each Taiwanese consumed an average of 133 kilograms (293 pounds) of rice and not quite 6 kilograms (13 pounds) of wheat flour. Rice was so much the staple of the Taiwanese diet that many folks didn’t feel full until they had downed some. A meal back then was incomplete without rice. Then Taiwan began receiving large quantities of wheat flour as part of economic aid from the United States. That, and a flour promotion movement, helped make wheat flour much more prevalent in Taiwan. The arrival of fast-food giant McDonald’s in Taiwan three decades ago also contributed much to the westernization of the local diet. By 2011, per capita annual rice consumption had dropped to 45 kilograms, whereas flour consumption had risen to 36.4 kilograms. With the two-thirds drop in rice consumption and the six-fold increase in flour consumption, flour is now almost on a par with the venerable rice on Taiwanese dining tables. Liu points out in his book that humans in Taiwan were not the only creatures to experience a change in diet over the past decades. Pigs—pork is the most commonly eaten meat in Taiwan—have also experienced the same sort of dietary shift. People used to feed their pigs sweet potatoes, but that changed when American corn made its way into Taiwan in a big way.
To sell its surplus corn to foreign markets, America helped boost Taiwan’s demand by guiding pig farmers in Taiwan to feed their animals corn. This quickly increased corn imports from the U.S. and reduced the demand for sweet potatoes, whose production plummeted from a high of more than three million tons to just 200,000 tons per year. Corn has been the leading agricultural import in Taiwan ever since. Corn is not the only new import that has found its way into Taiwan. Just pick up any package of mixed grains from a supermarket shelf, and you will find that the oats in it come from Australia, the millet from China, the Job’s tears from Laos, the mung beans from Myanmar, the sesame from India, and so on. Taiwan’s rate of food self-sufficiency has dropped to dangerous levels. Before 1970, Taiwan used to be entirely self-sufficient in regards to food, with a surplus to export. Over the last ten years, however, the rate of food self-sufficiency has hovered between 30 and 35 percent. Food independence has become an urgent national security issue that cannot wait. Ironically, while allowing the importation of so much food, Taiwanese agricultural policy is intentionally letting 200,000 hectares (772 square miles) of farmland stand idle. Should a food shortage on the international market occur, Taiwan is highly vulnerable. Such a shortage could be caused by natural disasters or spikes in energy prices that disrupt shipping. The way things are going, these two scenarios are not at all that far-fetched. Under pressure, in 2013 the Taiwanese Council of Agriculture finally made a significant change to its policy on subsidizing farmers for letting their fields lie fallow. Instead of giving out subsidies twice a year to farmers to leave their fields idle for two harvests a year, the revised policy pays for just one idling per year. This is intended to induce farmers to plant crops to reduce imports or to increase exports of competitive local crops. Those who grow corn, soybeans, and wheat all receive subsidies from the government.
A long road back Unfortunately, returning farmland that has lain fallow for a long time into production takes more than a change in policy. Much more is needed, and it certainly is not as easy as flipping a switch. The cultivation of a crop involves many steps, performed at the right time by skilled personnel. The same is true with the sale of the crop after a harvest. The components necessary to bring in a successful crop include the study and cultivation of seeds; the production and distribution of fertilizer; the practical knowledge needed to plant, weed, fertilize, harvest, and sell the crop; and not the least important, the willingness to do the backbreaking work. Once a crop ceases to be grown, these components invariably disintegrate or are deployed elsewhere for other purposes. The cultivation of the seeds for the crop may have stopped, farm machinery may be out of production, and, probably the most daunting of all, farmers with the knowledge and the willingness to do the job may be too old or have moved on to other things. In other words, the “production line” for producing a successful crop may be broken in several places. Getting those components functional again may not be as easy as one might think.
Puzi, Jiayi County, southern Taiwan, used to be a center for traditional agriculture, and the farmers association in the town has been pushing for a rebirth of local production, first Job’s tears and then soybeans. The association’s high hopes, however, have already run into some roadblocks. “Farmers are old, and we can’t find people willing to grow [those crops] anymore. Although some young people have come back here to farm, they are interested in growing high-value crops such as tomatoes or melons,” said Cai Jia-hang (蔡嘉航), a staffer at the farmers association. This is why the association’s initiative for bringing back the cultivation of traditional grains and other crops has yet to gain greater acceptance. Similar difficulties are facing localities in northern Taiwan. Farmer Pan Wei-hua (潘偉華), in Xinwu, Taoyuan County, pointed out that many of his neighbors have started to use their idle land to grow rice instead of any of the assorted grains and other crops that the revised government policy intended. Compared with those crops, rice is easy to grow since a smooth-running infrastructure for rice cultivation is already well established. A farmer does not actually need to do the work himself if he does not want to because the work can easily be contracted out. There is even the government’s purchase program to help out. “If all else fails, one can always give the rice to friends or relatives,” said Pan. This path of relative ease has therefore attracted farmers to grow rice on the land that they have put back into production. “[The government officials] meant well in making the policy change, but they didn’t think through all the nitty-gritty ramifications of its implementation,” commented veteran contract farmer Su Rong-can (蘇榮燦). In response to criticism, the government’s Agriculture and Food Agency said that they will work harder to promote the cultivation of crops such as corn and soybeans, and they agreed to help match farmers with bulk purchasers. This should make it easier for farmers to grow something other than rice.
Broken production line Su saw the heyday of contract farming for non-rice grains, legumes and tubers. About 20 years ago, he worked day and night to contract-farm 800 hectares a year. “At that time, we had nine contract farming centers in Jiali [Tainan, southern Taiwan] alone. But today, none of them are left,” Su said. He attributed his ability to plant 800 hectares a year to the help of machinery. “Without the machinery, just a few tenths of a hectare can wear out anyone,” he said. Mr. and Mrs. Chen Wen-long (陳文龍), of Yuanli, Miaoli County, northern Taiwan, can attest to Su’s assertion. The couple harvested a crop of black soybeans entirely with their own hands in mid-December 2012. Even though they had planted just two tenths of a hectare (half an acre), it took them three days to harvest their crop. And many more steps had to take place before the beans could be sold and consumed. After harvesting the plants by hand, the Chens had to use a threshing machine to separate the beans from the stalks and husks, and then they used a sorting machine to remove the undesirable beans from the good ones. Finally, they spread the beans out on the courtyard in front of their house to dry in the sun for a few days. If growing black soybeans is so very labor intensive, why do the Chens do it? Mostly “just for the fun of it,” they say. Their main crop is still rice. They also do it to lend moral support to Adama Shih’s endeavor to revive non-rice agriculture in Taiwan. Like the Chens, Shen Fu-lai (沈富來) of Wandan, Pingdong County, southern Taiwan, also harvested beans in December 2012, but his crop was adzuki beans. He went through much of the same process as the Chens. Before he sent his beans to the buyers, he even went through them one by one to sift out the bad ones. Such a labor-intensive separation method often made him dizzy and his vision blurred. Dedicated farmers like Shen and the Chens undoubtedly contribute positively to the government’s policy to diversify agricultural products. Their beans may be different, but their hard work, devotion, and love for farming are the same. However, the large-scale reintroduction of crops that have been absent for so long needs more than a few dedicated farmers to succeed. Each link in the entire production chain needs to be reestablished. Cai Pei-hui explained about the well-established rice production chain in Taiwan. At each step, machinery or workers for hire are available to help out if a farmer does not wish to personally perform the task. For example, machinery is available for rice planting, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, and threshing. Workers are readily available, too. No wonder it seems that everyone loves to grow rice.
When the government implemented the policy of decreasing the production of grains and other crops by paying landowners or farmers to leave their fields fallow, it also pulled the plug on the production chain. Farmers stopped planting, and everyone else involved in the production chain stopped as well. While farmers or landowners received government subsidies for taking their land out of production, no one else in the chain received any compensation—for example, those who dealt with seeds, fertilizer, farm hands, machinery, and buying or selling of the crops. Even seed researchers were left out. Stores shut down and people lost their livelihoods. Farming communities slumped into recession, and all those resources were scattered. Agriculture now accounts for 3 percent of the gross domestic product, down from 35 percent in 1952. “To revive farming villages, we must resume agricultural production,” said Professor Kuo. Needless to say, the government needs to help this revival by keeping the big picture in mind and rethinking the whole production chain. “As the saying goes, it won’t do to treat only where the pain is,” said Cai Pei-hui. But what crops should be planted? “We already have too much rice, vegetables, and fruit, so the only choices are non-rice grains, legumes and other traditional crops,” observed Professor Kuo. He is a strong advocate for growing an assortment of organic crops to boost food self-reliance and to bring idle land back into production. He pointed out that environmental subsidies allowable under the WTO framework can help. By distributing these subsidies to encourage farmers to grow various organic crops, the government can help farmers reduce costs in cultivating high-cost non-rice crops and do the environment a good turn at the same time. Another benefit to Kuo’s approach could be water conservation. “The water needed for these alternate crops is less than ten percent of what is needed for rice or vegetables,” said Yang Xie-han (楊協翰) of Erlun, Yunlin County. Yang grows organic sweet potatoes and soybeans. Water conservation has practical significance in Yunlin County, where residents have pumped out groundwater to such an extent that the ground has subsided at a number of places—a potential risk for the high-speed trains that pass through the area.
The value of diversity Erlin, also in Yunlin County, is the sweet potato capital of Taiwan. “In the old days, when I was a kid, pigs, water buffalo, and people in Taiwan all subsisted on sweet potatoes,” farmer Yang Tian-long (楊添隆), 65, recalled. At that time, life was much harder. Many Taiwanese would have gone hungry were it not for sweet potatoes. Some of those people, sick of having eaten so much of them, have continued to avoid sweet potatoes to this day. But for most people, the sweet potato has morphed from being a food to stay alive to a food to stay healthy. Nowadays, many people seek out this food for its perceived health properties. That is good news for farmers in Erlin, who are mostly getting on in years—they can still earn a living raising sweet potatoes. “They don’t want to rely on handouts from their children,” Yang said. “[By growing sweet potatoes], some of them have even managed to help their children buy homes.” The sweet potato once again does very good things for the people whose lives it touches. Adama Shih, of the Rejoice Bread Workshop, is more than glad to hear news like this. He has always emphasized the many benefits of planting diversified crops. He laments the harmful effects that the dominance of rice has had in Taiwan: “Prolonged cultivation of a single crop has deprived our farmers of their skills in other crops. They have the land, but not the skills to farm it.”
His choices for crops that should be cultivated again are soybeans, wheat and sesame. He favors crop rotation, which is also good for the productivity of the soil. Different crops need different nutrients in the soil, and crop rotation gives time for the nutrients to be replenished. In particular, soybeans enrich the nitrogen content of the soil, which can improve the growth of rice or wheat with reduced need for fertilizer. The soil is then naturally more fertile for the next crop. Crop rotation can even cut down on the damage done by pests. How is this possible? Rice is water-intensive and grows in waterlogged paddies for much of its life, while wheat needs less water and grows on dry land. The Fabaceae (legumes such as soybeans) and Poaceae (grasses including rice, wheat and corn) families of plants also have different diseases and different pest profiles. Subjecting land to alternating wet and dry conditions and different families of plants disrupts the rhythms and life cycles of pests living on that land, which makes it more hospitable to the crops. The successful experience of non-rice grain cultivation in Dongshi in the last six years is proof that fields on the west coast of Taiwan are quite suitable for planting wheat and other grains. “Wheat has grown pretty well despite the high levels of soil salinity,” said Shih. “The crop is a gem in bringing life back to these fields.” Turning from green to golden brown and bowing under the weight of maturing grain, wheat plants add life to blunt the gloom of winter. It is a pleasant sight to farmers, even more so when their fields attract the admiration of other people. “[Seeing fields of wheat] brings satisfaction and sunlight back to the faces of old farmers, who would otherwise probably feel useless, and that is priceless,” said Shih. “No amount of money can buy that.” Wheat is probably the best crop for older farmers because the requirements for growing it are relatively few. It requires no regular checking of water levels, and it requires no pesticides. Cai Pei-hui, of the Taiwan Rural Front, advocates cultivating wheat during winter too. “Many people plant vegetables during the winter, and the oversupply brings down prices,” Cai contended. “If wheat is planted instead, we’ll have an additional supply of wheat, and vegetable prices won’t plummet.”
Local is better All the public and private advocacy aside, domestically grown non-rice grains cannot survive in the long run unless they can stand on their own strength. Their success ultimately boils down to this simple question: Will people open their wallets for local grains? “Have a taste of local grains and local freshness,” said Su Rong-can as he handed me a cup of a thick, ten-grain blended drink. Even unsweetened, it tasted amazingly good to my palate. It felt nutritious, too. But is that enough to win the Taiwanese over? Having been under the shadow of dominant imported foods for so long, how can domestic grains and other traditional crops return to their past glory? Su Rong-can offered his opinion: “First, the quality must be superior. Second, local niches must be identified.” He believes that local foods can compete with imports on the basis of their characteristics, not price. Su also advocates the cultivation of what he calls “low-maintenance” crops such as buckwheat. “You can basically plant it and forget about it until harvest time,” he said. Though the yield of buckwheat is not high, its low maintenance makes its total cost extremely low. It can be used to make noodles or tea for considerable profit. Yu Ren-sheng, who saw the heyday of traditional crops in Taiwan when he was a youngster helping out at his family store, has years of experience with those products. He has every confidence in the quality and sale of domestic crops. “The sesame oil made from Taiwanese sesame is simply more aromatic,” Yu said. “Even though it costs three times as much [as imports], it always sells out.” Yu pointed out that imported mung beans, perhaps because of excessive oxidation during the long transit from abroad, remain tough even after much cooking. “Our own mung beans, mushy and soft when cooked, are much better than the imports,” he said. Local grain has found huge support from the Lien Hwa Industrial Corporation. It is the largest wheat flour company in Taiwan, and yet Huang Bei-chen (黃北辰), director of its business department and a veteran of the trade, said, “I smelled the scent of fresh wheat for the first time only last year.” Apparently, fresh wheat plants are rare enough in Taiwan that even a wheat flour veteran like Huang had not seen or smelled them until recently. To support local agriculture, the company buys up all the wheat that the Rejoice Bread Workshop acquires from its contract farmers. The company pays two and a half times what it pays for imports. Flour made from this domestic wheat is now on the market commercially. When the company first put local wheat flour on the market, some bakers questioned its quality and balked at using it. However, researchers have found that the wheat grains yield higher amounts of flour than imported ones, and the flour is more flavorful with superior water absorbency. Its quality is unimpeachable. Rejoice Bread Workshop’s farmers do not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Their eco-friendly approach has received the confidence of Taiwanese bakers, who snap up all the available flour. With a big business such as Lien Hwa Industrial Corporation making the flour and bakeries using it, local wheat farmers have found breathing room to establish and expand their production. Domestic wheat seems to have found a foothold in the Taiwanese market. Part of that stems from the rising desire among consumers to take charge of their own health by eating more healthy foods. Wholesome local wheat fits the profile of food they are looking for: high-quality, fresh, safe, and eco-friendly. Wheat and other grains are riding on this rising tide. Huang Kai-yun (黃楷芸) runs a grain store in Ershui, Zhanghua County, central Taiwan. “More people are buying brown rice or mixed grains,” said Huang. “White rice is actually on the decline.” This is true in big cities and small communities alike. Huang also pointed out that many people have called from big cities to order organic or local grains. Zhang Shou-xin (張守信), also in the grain business in central Taiwan, offered similar observations. He observed that the demand for non-rice grains has grown consistently for the past 15 years. He acknowledged that due to the cost, not every batch of imported grain has been tested for chemical residues, but he pointed out that the grain comes mostly from poor villages in Southeastern Asia or China where farmers cannot afford pesticides. He believes that Taiwanese farmers should shun pesticides too.
An issue of security A visit to any supermarket certainly gives one the impression that Taiwan has an abundant supply of food. However, more observant shoppers will notice that much of the food in the market is imported from abroad. In fact, due to global free trade, Taiwan produces only about 30 percent of the food that its residents consume. Japan has faced similar trade pressures and has had to open its markets to agricultural imports even more than Taiwan has. Japan has only one rice harvest per year, and its farmers are even older than those in Taiwan. It may seem that the country should be highly dependent on imported food. However, it is able to produce 40 percent of the food that it needs, more than Taiwan. We apparently have room for improvement. Perhaps we can learn how Japan does it. Hu Zhong-yi (胡忠一), deputy head of the Department of Irrigation and Engineering at the Council of Agriculture, studied in Japan. He pointed out a few things that the Japanese have been doing to lessen their dependency on imported food. First, they are proud of and have great confidence in domestic products. They believe in local production for local consumption. In supermarkets, they use special labels to highlight domestic or local products. The northern Japanese island of Hokkaido even launched a green lantern project that has received wide acceptance throughout the nation. Thousands of restaurants hang a green lantern near their entrance; the more stars on the lantern, the more local food the store uses. Second, by law students are required to go to nearby farms to help out. The farms produce crops to supply school lunches. Hu contends that such an arrangement helps bond students with local farms and local food. Farmers get a sense of honor and a sense of responsibility by cultivating crops safe for consumption. Hu is of the opinion that food globalization and localization should be adopted side-by-side. Since joining the WTO, Taiwan has experienced widening agricultural trade deficits mainly because of large quantities of imported foods. It is a good time and a must-do to bring production of traditional grains and other crops back to Taiwan. |
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