Agritourism& Future of Farming

Agritourism and Future of Farming:

Interview with Farmer Chen Guangjing

Author: Noel Wang 王崇天 Editor: Jonah Chapman-Sung

15 October 2024—

田野勤學 (Tianye Qinxue) is an organic soybean farm located a 15-minute drive away from the High-Speed Rail Station of Changhua County, Taiwan. The day of our visit was cloudy and warm. During the ride over, I briefly glimpsed for the first time the farmhouses and fields comprising the area’s agricultural landscape, a far cry from the tumultuous urban environment of Taipei I’d just arrived from. 

Chen Guangjing (陳光鏡), the founder of Tianye Qinxue, was originally an engineer but switched careers to pursue a better life for his children. After returning to his hometown in Beitou Township to become a soybean farmer, he aimed to grow a nutritious, healthy product with less environmental impact than conventional farming. Since its founding in 2015, Tianye Qinxue has extended past the kitchen cupboard and into the classroom, where they now host workshops and experiential activities to introduce a wide variety of people of all ages to the world of soybean farming.

Tianye Qinxue’s unique business model of combining farming soybeans, manufacturing soy products, and providing educational opportunities to the community speaks to the changing landscape of farming in present-day Taiwan. Chen Guangjing’s first crop of soybeans did not make a profit; the operating cost of his farm was too great. Thus, his original plan of making a living from organic soybean farming alone was untenable.

During our interview, Chen described how farmers in Changhua like himself face significant challenges in seeking government assistance from the Farmers’ Association (農會). For starters, to apply for agricultural loans, the farmer’s income must be below average, which disadvantages the farmers in need of this assistance. Then, the farmers must prove to the loan distributor that their earnings during the loan period would be solely used for agricultural purposes. Chen recalled how the application process even went so far as to make him provide photos of himself farming in the fields with equipment to give evidence of his occupation. These complicated procedures especially pose a challenge for new farmers, who often face difficulty obtaining loans. Because of these problems with the current system, he feels that the Farmers’ Association acts more as a bank cooperative that works with farmers rather than an agricultural collective that supports them more directly. As a result, farmers like himself may be forced to come up with creative ways to make ends meet.

Chen also spoke about the broader relationship between the government and farmers in Changhua. In the context of Tianye Qinxue’s agritourism business, he believes that the local government can play a beneficial role in helping attract tourists to Beitou throughout the year, which would allow him to boost his alternative streams of income when soybeans are not in season. In the past, he has partnered with local organizations to sell his soybean products and merchandise but hopes to expand his business reach in the future. Another proposed idea was turning the former site of a local market into a place for farmers to sell produce and other products. Unfortunately, renovating historical sites requires complex procedures and approvals that could take several years, so this proposal was met with opposition from local officials. 

Due to issues on the local level, Chen suggested that collaborating with the central government might yield more results, as there are more national initiatives for regional and agricultural development. From a wider perspective, Tianye Qianxue’s agrotourism and Chen’s efforts to bring more attention to his business are connected to the Taiwanese government’s efforts to invest in rural communities through the National Strategic Plan for Regional Revitalization. 

The Executive Yuan proposed this initiative in 2018 [1], which happens to be the same year Taiwan was officially declared an “aged society,” as 14% of the population was over age 65 [2]. By next year, in 2025, that statistic will jump to one in five people. In general, Taiwan’s birth rates are steadily declining across the country [3], but the aging population problem is exacerbated in rural areas. Additionally, young people are increasingly moving away to search for jobs in urban areas, leaving older members of the community to take up the responsibility for the agricultural industry. In fact, in 2015, only 6% of Taiwanese farmers were under age 45. The same study found that over 46% of Taiwanese farmers were over age 65 [4]—and undoubtedly, that percentage has grown in approximately the past ten years. The aging population, loss of young people, lack of infrastructure (such as healthcare and education), and low income have put the farming industry in Taiwan in peril, as the number of farmers has gone from 1 million in the 1960s to around 500,000 in the present day [5]. 

While farmers in other countries such as Japan are also facing similar crises due to aging populations [6], Taiwan’s farmers also face some unique challenges due to the land inheritance system [7] and agricultural import regulations. After joining the World Trade Organization in 2002, Taiwan had to lower import tariffs, meaning that domestic agricultural products struggled to compete with foreign goods. At the same time, Taiwan’s small farms cannot produce on the same scale as other countries internationally. In Taiwan, small-scale farming (under 1 hectare of land per farmer) comprises about 80% of the agricultural industry. The result is that, compared to other nations that engage in larger-scale industrial farming, Taiwan’s farmers fall behind in profits. Thus, many farmers succumb to the pressures of land developers who seek to purchase their land, resulting in a significant and concerning decrease in farmland—about 3000 hectares per year [4]. 

Why are farms in Taiwan so small? Unlike Japan, where land is traditionally inherited by the eldest child, in Taiwan, land is evenly divided and split among heirs. For this reason, Taiwanese farms tend to be very small, and each farmer has much less bargaining power when it comes to negotiating deals with parties interested in purchasing land, such as land developers, solar power companies, or other large entities. In these cases, powerful companies can simply purchase large swathes of land at once, leaving multiple farmers at a loss [7]. Instead of passing land to their children, farmers may just sell it. One study found that over 70% of farmers would not directly arrange for their children to inherit their farms, although they would support them if they chose to do so [4]. Yet, the incentives to inherit farms are few, and opportunities in urban areas continue to call younger people away from farming.

Agritourism and Regional Revitalization

In reaction to these problems faced by the aging farmer population, one part of the Regional Revitalization National Strategy Plan involves agricultural reform. As part of this policy, the Taiwanese government aims to establish farmers’ cooperatives, encourage farmers to use organic farming methods by subsidizing them, and support agricultural research initiatives [5]. However, based on our interview, even for organic farmers like Chen Guangjing, even with the Regional Revitalization initiative, government support is still hard to come by for organic farmers like himself.

Beyond monetarily supporting farmers directly, Taiwan’s government has also invested in agritourism, the practice of essentially turning a farm into a tourist destination to attract people from other areas, such as nearby cities. While Taiwan’s agricultural sector is a very small part of the overall economy, within the agricultural sector, agritourism is a popular enterprise, with 486 farms being licensed as of 2020. The Council of Agriculture reported that these farms had a production value of NT $10.9 billion [1]. 

The benefits of agritourism are many. In attracting visitors to their farms, farmers can diversify and increase their income. Agritourism is associated with promoting sustainability and preserving heritage within a community [1]. One study using census data from 2010 of 720,148 farmers in Taiwan found that farms engaging in agrotourism had more family members working on the farm—which has positive effects on farm succession—and improved the economic situation of the farmers and their families [8]. Agritourism is especially strategic in Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, where small-scale, family farms dominate the agricultural industry. In Taiwan, 98% of farms are family farms, and agritourism thus also provides an avenue to engage multiple generations of families in farming, with the possibility of increasing the succession rate. Additionally, many farms in Asia, including in Taiwan, are located near urban centers, which brings business opportunities to farmers wanting to attract tourists [8].

The same study of census data investigated demographic data and found that farmers who had higher levels of education and younger family members who worked on the farm were more likely to engage in agritourism. Additionally, farms located in urban or suburban areas were more likely to participate, as well, possibly due to the high population density of cities, and the opportunity to attract people with farm-themed activities [8].

For these farmers, engaging in agritourism was found to have a statistically significant impact on their earnings. In 2010, their income was greater than non-participating farms by NT $320,675. Family farm succession was also impacted positively by agritourism. Comparing the number of farm successors across the agritourism vs. non-agritourism farms, there was a difference of 0.065 people. Overall, agritourism increased farm income by 27% and the number of farm successors by 19% [8].

Policy recommendations from this study include finding ways to promote agritourism both in rural and urban communities. Increasing access to education, information, and infrastructure can support farmers and their families in creating agritourism businesses. Raising broader public awareness about agritourism can then help these farmers reach a wider customer base [8].

Returning to Changhua, the data supports Chen Guangjing’s success with Tianye Qinxue. As an organic farmer located relatively close to a city, his agricultural products and educational endeavors have a market niche that has been able to sustain him and his family in ways that farming alone could not. As a prominent member of the farming community, Chen’s experience also speaks to the broader impacts of the Rural Revitalization Strategy and how effective, if at all, the government’s efforts at supporting farmers are.

Though agritourism is a booming business in Taiwan that shows great promise in increasing farmer succession rates and raising the income of farmers, the problem of Taiwan’s decreasing farmland and dependence on foreign imports remains. Also, environmental issues such as soil erosion, environmental damage from chemical fertilizers, and water pollution still pose a great threat to farmers [1][4]. Chen Guangjing recalls that when he asked a room of students at Tianye Qinxue if they believed that his land would still be arable in fifty years, only half raised their hands. In the end, the true value of the land is for growing food to sustain future generations, and we can hope that the agritourism supported by Regional Revitalization can help us to achieve this mission.

1. Hsieh, Chi-Ming, and Melchior Antoine. "The Role of Agritourism in Taiwan's Rural Revitalization Strategy." FFTC Agricultural Policy Platform (FFTC-AP), 20 Oct. 2023, https://ap.fftc.org.tw/article/3437.

2. Xinhua. Report Predicts Taiwan to Become "Super-Aged" Society Next Year. 18 Oct. 2024, https://english.news.cn/20241018/57d6e6227af4a7cb28e599db805384f/c.html.

3. Hsueh, James C. T. "Taiwan Fast Graying into a 'super-Aged' Society." Asia Times, 6 Mar. 2023, http://asiatimes.com/2023/03/taiwan-fast-graying-into-a-super-aged-society/

4. Huang, Edric. "Taiwan's Small Farmers Face Land Speculators and Legal Hurdles - ICWA." Institute of Current World Affairs, 4 Oct. 2024, https://www.igva.org/farmland-transition-taiwan/.

5. Liu, Wan-Yu. "Rural Development and Rural Revitalization Strategy of Taiwan." FFTC Agricultural Policy Platform, 11 July 2023, https://ap.fftc.org.tw/article/3384/.

6. Usman, Muhammad, et al. “Strained Agricultural Farming under the Stress of Youths’ Career Selection Tendencies: A Case Study from Hokkaido (Japan).” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, vol. 8, no. 1, Jan. 2021, p. 19, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-00688-4. 

7. Chen, Wan-O. Interview with Chen Wan-O. 12 Nov. 2024.

8. Chang, Hung‐Hao, et al. “A Supply‐side Analysis of Agritourism: Evidence from Farm‐level Agriculture Census Data in Taiwan.” Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, vol. 63, no. 3, 2019, pp. 521–48, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.12304.