Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States

Byline:AUDREY WANG
Publication Date:08/01/2012

Fresh Food in the City

The worm-eaten holes on cabbages in a Citizen Farmers plot in New Taipei City provide evidence that no pesticides have been used to grow the plants. (Photo by Audrey Wang)

Urban farming is gaining popularity both as a leisure pursuit and as a source of food.

In early 2011, former police officer Lin Tsung-yi (林聰義) began thinking about how he would spend his free time after he retired in March this year. As he was pondering, he happened to hear about a scheme launched by the Agricultural Department of the New Taipei City Government (NTCG) that allowed 210 local residents to grow produce on 10-ping (33-square-meter) plots of land rent-free for six months in 2011. When Lin learned of the Citizen Farmers program, he instantly knew that he had found a way to put his leisure time to good use. He quickly signed up for the program and by July 2011 began planting vegetables on a plot in Shulin District in eastern New Taipei City, one of the three areas selected for the program.

“I thought I’d give it a try to see how it went,” Lin recalls. “But after I started it, my interest [in gardening] grew further. Seeing the plants get taller and larger each day gave me a great sense of achievement.”

Lin’s rent-free farming ended in December 2011. To continue what has become his favorite activity, he now rents a plot in the same area directly from the landowner. The new plot is twice the size of the old one, which means that he gets to spend more time at his hobby. He usually dedicates one to two hours every morning and at least half of the day on weekends to activities like fertilizing, pest removal, plowing and watering.

The NTCG program is designed to address the needs of amateur agriculture enthusiasts in the city and has become one of the most successful government-backed community farming initiatives in the country. In addition to providing the free plots, the city government pays experienced farmers to provide technical support at every site seven days a week.
Fresh Food in the City-1

Amateur farmer Lin Tsung-yi displays freshly harvested carrots from his garden in Shulin District, New Taipei City. (Photo by Audrey Wang)

According to the NTCG, the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA) set up the country’s first community gardening sites in the 1980s as a measure to revitalize fallow land. The NTCG’s program was launched in 2011, but has different objectives. “We’d like to provide a leisure option for residents who want to experience farming,” says Hsu Kai-yu (徐開宇), chief secretary of NTCG’s Agriculture Department. “We also hope that giving the city’s unemployed people exposure to farming can lead some of them to consider the possibility of making a living from agriculture.” In 2011, participants in the Citizen Farmers program could grow fruit and vegetables, while this year’s program limits them to growing specific kinds of vegetables. The new restriction was put into effect because the citizen farmers are required to donate 30 percent of their produce to charitable organizations, which typically request a large quantity of certain types of vegetables. According to Hsu, growers in the NTCG program gave more than 2,400 kilograms of fresh vegetables to charities last year.

While the earlier COA program allowed participants to use pesticides and chemical fertilizers on their plants, the NTCG scheme bans their use. Hsu says the program’s emphasis on organic gardening is in line with a major NTCG policy that encourages the cultivation and consumption of organic food. Under the policy, around 50 elementary and middle schools in New Taipei City currently provide organic lunches once a week, he says. The program is expected to be expanded to 100 schools next month and to all 300 primary and secondary schools in the city next year, Hsu says, adding that schools are also being encouraged to begin serving organic food twice a week by the end of 2013.

Suitable Land

According to the NTCG, the challenging part of organizing the urban farming program is finding suitable land. The sites need to be near populated areas and provide public storage facilities, sufficient parking spaces and toilets, but they must also be big enough to accommodate dozens of gardeners. Once the city identifies a likely piece of land, the NTCG enters into discussions with the landowner. The main attraction for owners is a better deal than that offered by the COA’s fallow land subsidy program, which pays farmers up to NT$90,000 (US$3,000) per year for each hectare of idle land that is kept in good agricultural condition. If the landowner is interested in participating, the city’s Agriculture Department runs water and soil tests to ensure the property’s suitability for organic agriculture.

The chance to grow produce without paying rent has proven a big hit among New Taipei City residents. “More than 1,000 people registered for the 300 spots available,” Hsu says of this year’s program, which began in April. Participants are selected by a lottery. Those who win a spot are required to pay a deposit of NT$3,000 (US$100) to guarantee they will not leave their plot uncultivated.
Fresh Food in the City-2

An instructor at Yungho Community University in New Taipei City gives a lecture on growing wetland herbs and vegetables. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

This summer, Lin has been busy growing around 20 kinds of vegetables on his plot in Shulin. As he is no longer a participant in the rent-free program and can dispose of the produce as he wishes, he often gives away extra vegetables to relatives and friends.

Lin may be among the few urbanites in Taiwan to have taken up agriculture as a serious hobby, but he is also one of the many who dream of some involvement in farming. According to a survey released by the COA in April this year, 92 percent of the 5,242 respondents had previously considered growing at least some of their own food, an increase of about 20 percent from 2007. Among those potential gardeners, 78 percent said they were interested in growing fruit and vegetables as a retirement option, leisure pursuit or way to experience rural life, while the remaining 22 percent said they were interested in farming as a new business opportunity or investment option.

Lin’s interest in urban farming is also related to his growing awareness of the benefits of healthy food, or organic vegetables in his case. “You harvest and eat the food you grow,” he says. “The most important thing is that you can eat the vegetables with peace of mind because you know no pesticides or chemical fertilizers were used to grow them.”

Deterring Pests Naturally

Lin says that organic farming turned out to be a lot easier than he had expected. Controlling bugs is a common problem for new organic farmers, for example, but he has learned that it can be done by growing plants with natural pest-repelling properties. “Plants like scallions, garlic, basil and mint are good options. Pests don’t like the smell of them and will stay away,” he explains. “You also can try putting some shiny paper in the garden to reflect the sunlight; pests don’t like that either.”
Fresh Food in the City-3

An urban farmer constructs a simple trellis from bamboo and rope as preparation for growing climbing vegetables. (Photo by Audrey Wang)

The retired police officer adds that he learned about pest control and other basic aspects of organic produce cultivation by attending workshops the NTCG offers as part of the Citizen Farmers program. He also searches for information online before trying to grow vegetables he is unfamiliar with, which has helped him learn things like the seasons plants grow best in and how building up mounds of soil can improve drainage in a garden bed.

In 2004, educator Chiang Hui-i (江慧儀) and her husband Peter Morehead founded Earth Passengers, a Taipei-based nongovernmental organization established to promote environmental protection and preservation. For Chiang, urban agriculture is as much about food security as it is about producing healthier food. “[Most] cities appear to have easy access to everything, but in fact, they rely heavily on resources from the outside world to keep them alive,” she says, adding that if Taiwan’s transportation systems were to stop working, urban areas would become very vulnerable because they produce so little fresh food. “To us, growing food is a way to create resilience, which means we’ll respond better if disaster strikes,” she says.

Earth Passengers’ urban farming courses focus on producing food in an ecologically sustainable manner. Sustainability can be achieved through practices such as collecting rainwater to water plants and composting food waste and weeds to create new soil, Chiang says. The main idea, she adds, is to reduce reliance on nonrenewable resources.

Chiang’s solution to the problem of finding land for growing plants in urban environments is to look for unutilized and overlooked plots around homes and public spaces. In a Taipei City Government-backed program organized by Earth Passengers in 2004, for example, the educator and her staff took dozens of residents of Jin An Borough, Da-an District in Taipei City on a walking tour to look for potential gardening sites. The locations they identified included balconies, rooftops and corners of parking lots, and several of the plots were later used for gardening. Earth Passengers continued rehabilitating fragments of urban land for gardening in 2010, when the organization worked with students at a local community college to plant vegetables on vacant lots along Taipei City’s Roosevelt Road.
Fresh Food in the City-4

Participants in the Citizen Farmers program plant sprouting vegetables in New Taipei City. (Photo Courtesy of Agricultural Department, New Taipei City Government)

As soil quality in urban areas is often less than ideal, Chiang’s group promotes a layering system that places shredded cardboard on the native soil, then covers it with compost. After crops are planted, a layer of mulch is spread on top of the compost, which helps it retain water and nutrients.

Chen Chin-tu (陳金塗) is the owner of a company that manufactures cutting and pressing machinery in Taichung City, central Taiwan. Chen began farming more than 10 years ago on a piece of land he rented in the city and has since become a proponent of vertical farming, or growing vegetables in boxes on multiple levels of shelving. His experience in the machinery industry played an important role in his invention of a unique modular growing system in which shelves and boxes can be arranged in different combinations. Slots in the bottom of each box allow them to be fastened tightly to the system’s shelves or balcony railings to prevent them from toppling in strong wind. The system also channels excess water from the bottom of each planter to a common drain to prevent the runoff from leaking into downstairs apartments. Chen says he has sold about 2,000 systems since he patented the product in 2009. “That number isn’t so impressive,” Chen says, “but I’m happy I can give people who’re interested in urban farming an easier way to start.”

Chiang believes there is a growing number of people who share that interest in Taiwan, but says most have yet to turn their enthusiasm into action. “I think growing flowers to beautify homes has gained a certain popularity [in Taiwan], but growing your own food hasn’t become a widely accepted idea yet,” she says. Her observation is backed by the results of the COA survey, which showed that only 30 percent of those who wanted to pursue agriculture as a leisure activity had begun planning or taking action toward that goal. Those who had yet to act identified a lack of know-how as their biggest hurdle.
Fresh Food in the City-5

Chen Chin-tu invented a modular growing system to give those interested in urban farming an easier way to start. (Photo Courtesy of Chen Chin-tu)

Equal Age Distribution

On the other hand, Chiang has been pleased to see the number of young people interested in urban farming rise to the level of their older peers. “We’ve gotten some college students who want to learn how to farm in our community college class, and there’s an equal distribution of students’ ages, which now range from 20-something to 60-something,” she says. Chiang says most of the young students take the class out of concerns about the development of Taiwan’s agricultural sector, food safety or possible food shortages.

Aside from environmental benefits and harvests of healthy vegetables, enthusiasts say urban farming also provides more spiritual rewards. Instead of wondering how to fill his free time since retiring, Lin, for example, has found a thoroughly engrossing avocation that gives him another way to express his love for his family. “Now I only grow vegetables my family likes to eat,” he says cheerfully. “Chestnut pumpkin has been a big favorite recently.”

Lin also believes that farming has helped him keep a more open mind. “My heart has become softer,” he says. Rather than considering pests as enemies as he did before, he says that he now sees the holes bugs have eaten in his vegetables as a kind of sharing. “Just think of it this way,” he says with a gentle smile. “Bugs like the same things we do. Whatever they leave is what we’re supposed to have.”