Farming & fresh foods
By Abby Voyen
One of my biggest takeaways from the trip involves the food and the culture surrounding food in Taiwan. When walking through the various markets and grocery stores, I see so many different kinds of fruits, vegetables, leaves, nuts, and herbs that people are buying and using in their food. It appears that all parts of the plant and animal are used in meals. This is a very new concept for me. Their resourcefulness reflected by not wasting any parts of the plant, in my opinion, shows their respect for food.
Having 23 millions people living on this island and being the 2nd most densely populated country in the world, Taiwan has learned to be resourceful in its food supply. Growing increasingly conscious of the environmental impact from conventional farming, more and more farmers have turned to organic farming.
No place is this trend more evident in Bunun Leisure Farm in Taitung. Bunun is one of the 16 officially recognized indigenous tribes in Taiwan. Being a Bunun, Pastor Pai Kwang Sheng, now in his seventies, has experienced the struggles against discrimination, poverty, and cultural marginalization. He said God gave him a vision to change all these when he returned to his tribe after seminary. Over the past three decades, his ancestral land has turned into an anthro-tourism destination with hotel rooms, conference room, restaurant, coffee shop, weaving shop, archery ground, village theater and organic farm.
When we visited plots and plots of vegetables on this farm, we met an elderly couple working in the fields. They showed us the daikon or white radish that they had just pulled from the ground. He explained to us the difference of daikon farmed in a conventional way and in an organic way. He also mentioned how his health had improved over the last 7 or 8 years since he started organic farming in Bunun Leisure Farm. They are both very passionate about what they do and feel that it is important to pass the knowledge and skills down to the next generations.
In the United States, everything we do is in mass quantities. We have factory farming and processed foods to feed our population. I realize organically farming for the entire population would be incredibly difficult, but I do think there are lessons to be learned from the elderly couple about farming, resourcefulness, and life in general.
