【New Taipei City News】The small ditch in Sanchih Gong-Run Community is usually a quiet laundry place where women gather to work and chat. Young farmers from all over the world joined them this time to experience the daily life of Taiwanese rural areas. New Taipei City Government cooperated with the IFOAM Asia (IFOAM, International Federal of Organic Agriculture Movement) to hold the IFOAM Asia Organic Youth Forum: Access to Markets: A Road to Sustainability, from March 26 to 31, 2019, and arranged members to visit organic industries in Taiwan in the final two days.

Yesterday, the first stop was Sanchih Gong-Run Community. Besides rice planting, the community also has rich farmland wetlands, streams, and water channels. Combining the history of the community, residents develop a unique ecological community trip. Young farmers also visited SGS Taoyuan Laboratory to see various scientific tests at the inspection site. They also visit the school lunch organic vegetable processing factory established by Taoyuan’s Farmers’ Association and New Taipei City Government. This processing factory adopts the “whole factory organic” system to cut and process organic vegetables and can handle 600-800 kg per hour. Products are shipped from the origin place and the processing factory with two “verification stamps” to ensure that the whole process is organic, and samples are sent for inspection to the source of the product and the processing factory to ensure the safety of children’s food and create a healthy school lunch. The Agriculture Department of the New Taipei City Government explained the complete process of organic vegetables and fruits from the factory to the central kitchen for cooking and then to schools after cutting and packaging. Tomoko Miyoshi, a lecturer from Japan who had participated in the nutrition lunch planning of the local government, also asked about the design process of the school lunch menu, saying that she was very impressed by the complete planning process.

The Young farmers visited Yong Lin Farm in Shannon District, Kaohsiung, on the second day of the visit. It covers an area of 54 hectares and grows more than 300 kinds of organic fruits and vegetables. It is the largest organic farm in Taiwan. Yong Lin Research Group developed the “Simple Farm” — Green Agricultural Smart Platform to apply extensive data analysis and IoT technology to agricultural management, used the platform connects monitoring equipment, recorded the temperature, humidity, pest status, and other field data of the surrounding environment and soil one by one, and then exported the report with cloud computing to help farmers see past ignored problems and make more accurate judgments. The first intelligent irrigation system with an innovative water supply based on crop growth mode in Taiwan was also displayed in Yong Lin Farm. Besides the smart production process, Yong Lin Farm has tour guides with environmental education lecturer licenses, courses designed for public institutions and schools, and open to the public for sightseeing.

Young farmers then visit the Taiwan Banana Research Institute. The Institute has developed unique seedlings against Panama disease in the world. It helped the banana industry release from the Panama disease for the past half a century; Taiwan bananas have also been exported to Mozambique, the Philippines, and other African countries. Banana Research Institute not only has a professional agricultural research function. Taiwan Banana Research Institute has recently been transformed and opened to the general public. International young farmers will practice the tasting experience, find out the ripeness of bananas that are most suitable for tasting, and end the two-day rich visit itinerary.

More Information:
Agriculture Department, New Taipei City Government Forestry Section Chia-Wen Huang / Chief Tel: 2960-3456 * 31 Mobile: 0921-073-005