Big topic if anyone is interested.
To kick things off. Government sponsonsered logic driving through “organic area” as posted by sign boards.
1 week after they hired guys with weed eaters to come do the sides of the roads anyway, after sprayimg roundup, and cut down all my cinnamon…
A great system for Taiwan to adopt. It has been doing so all over the world for decades, though more often as private ventures.
Gov project with Australia. Giving back for the mango varieties they stole haha.
Where do you get roundup in Taiwan? I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Ag chem shops. These shops are everywhere outside the city. Bayer has stores here as well.
Though i personally suggest you think about another course of action rather than unhealthy quick fixes.
Thinking we can continue agriculture conversations over here
@gain about the plastic contamination in soil from the pineapple thread.
Some.closer pictures for you.
That is what is left over after pineappled and.tilled into the soil each harvest.
It looks like this when growing
when pineapples are getting closer to harvest, they often wrap them, or cover them from the sun. Depending what the cost is of the material they use they are either reused, burned or thrown on the field. Sometimes the farmer cleans them up. Some examples.
These commercial wraps are usually impregnated with plastic so they dont fall apart. They are more often used to second time unless t hey break. I would guess at a good 10% or more are thrown away after first use judging by whats whats left over,
But very variable.
Plastic shade cloth is sometimes used as well, But is way more e xpensive. It lasts many years, Reusable and faster to install rather than wrapping each one. Disadvantage is the pineapples that are too small get covered too.when it gets too old and broken, Farmers normally dispose of it better and its not tilled in or burned usually.
I’m trying to follow your line of reasoning but it’s difficult. I’m not trying to discount everything you’re saying but:
You started out by saying you only eat at Subway in Donggang because other restaurants there make you sick.
You moved on to dismiss the food people eat in all of Pingtung County.
Now we’re talking about pineapple production?
…and you still haven’t responded with any names of any restaurants or “food companies.” WHICH restaurants are to be avoided and why? WHICH food companies? You claim to have evidence of wrongdoing, you claim to have “witnessed” things. Where is the evidence? What have you witnessed?
I go by pineapple fields like that every day on my way to work. I’m well aware of how they grow pineapples around here, and yes, plastic pollution is an issue.
But what does that have to do with restaurants in Donggang? With specific food companies?
Help me understand you here, sir. You claim to have specific information that could benefit people’s health.
Plastiglomerate and the beginning of the Anthropocene.
These are different threads i was trying not to derail the ither ones further. here is about the ag side of things. can check out the pineapple row thread for the previous discussion.
As mentioned, i wont name.names because i do not want to get sued, in jail or in a river. that wasnt sarcasm. Any information i have, when its enough, gets sent to the the fda, fire departments or media if the gov hasnt done anything. im not posting company names on a public forum as i will get mya ss torn apart. i hope you understand that.
So rather i prefer to sh are ideas, information and data in.general and people can make their own decissions. Or places i feel are good, as thats legally no issue. Like subway, but many people said they got sick, so take that one with a grain of salt.
this thread is more about farming as
Not everyone is aware of how stuff is grown. will add other stuff when time.allows. feel free to add your experiences as well.
What about 释迦?
Don’t ruin my most favorite fruit of Taiwan.
Please please please don’t…
I will never chat with you again. 
The wrap them all one by one with plastic on the trees, but I’m pretty sure that wrapping accompanies them to market.
The groves I stayed at seemed fine. But if there was a soil problem I wouldn’t know.
Are you begging me not to, or tempting me to spill the beans? Im on a short toilet break, i will destroy your happiness shortly. Because the common Annona species are sprayed to shit. Be back shortly to be the douche that prevents your kidney failure.
Ps.dont shoot the messanger, i also disagree with how things are done mostly.
That’s okay. Only eat them once every few years anyway.
I sort of knew that they are like any other fruit in Taiwan, grown under please-don’t-explain circumstances.
Just wanted to give a shout out to my favorite fruit.
Second is wax apples.
That surprises me because the farm I stayed at said they used no chemicals. They did check every fruit individually every day. Very labor intensive.
Sorry guys will reply much later. My body is burning from an exploded chili powder bag and my body is burning. Will answer once the fire subsides.
Quick not, wax apple is often worse than cherimoya/atemoya. Both normally use a lot of chems, but organic isnt impossible.
I dunno man. You really think the people willing and able to sue you are on Forumosa? And there’s also a moral argument to be made here. You claim to have specific information regarding specific companies. The rest of us are probably eating food processed by those companies. You’re still not willing to mention names? To describe whatever it is you witnessed?
Yes it is possible, yes it has happened to me and many others. Though not through forumosa cause i am more careful now.
I get you dont like it, but after doing it for so long one realises there is a procedure and spewing it all over internet forums isnt it. If nothing happens, that is one way, along with facebook, the media etc to get the public to shame them.
Evidence collecting is quite hard, riaky and incredibly time consuming. No one in their right mind would risk all the work just to post a company’s name on a forum. Very sorry, but thats the reality even though it sucks to hear. I would assume calling out companies on serious legal thungs would put the owners of this site at risk of legal actions as well. Not sure, but seems possible. Taiwan has become a sue culture. See the defamation thread. There is a reason there isnt a serious food critic sector in taiwan.
So in the meantime we should get better educated on where our food is from, how its produced and all that jazz. Thats what i am here wanting to discuss. To share my experience and learn from.others. there are a number of foreigners in the ag biz in taiwan, some are members here. Im sure each one has their own take and expertise.
A lot of these films are said to be biodegradable as long as you keep them covered underground for over 6 months. Something about decomposable agricultural mulch.
https://gfcl.com.tw/index.php?route=product/product&path=103&product_id=1014
On Annona varieties that are commercial here. They are starting to use lights now to tigger flowers, which is better than chemicals, but bad for the environment. Farmers are starting to switch to LED rather than CFL which is good. I find it gard to believe organic dragon fruit farms with ateings of cfl are organic. They break easy and the bulbs are filled with some pretty nasty stuff.
Annona is sprayed mostly for insects. I did some experiments and found controlling ants with boric acid traps cut down on mealy, scale, aphids etc a LOT. Introducing lacewing eggs biweekly killed the rest. This seems the ideal to me. The ants farm various sucking insects and protect them from things like lacewings, ladybugs, predatory mites etc. Kill them, the breeding crasges and introduction of biological pest control is incredibly effective. Its easier, faster and long term as effective.
Herbacides are also used, though many farmers now mow the lawn more like a western orchard, which is good.
If you go anywhere in taidong county and ask anyone, farmer or not, they all laugh and say annona are sprayed very aggressively. Its pretty established unfortunately. They used to be my favorite fruit, now i never eat them. Organic farms do exist though.
Wax apple is a similar situation, people in pingtung also know about the spray but tend to care less. Wax apples are normally wrapped for darkness, given hormones and flowers commence.
The thing.with bagging fruit is 2 fold. 1 is bugs. Most fruit flies. The other that people try to avoid talking about about is they bag the fruit and spray the fuck out of the trees. Its better as it prevents a lot of chemical contamination, but not all. The amount of non recycleable plastic involved with tree fruit bagging is frankly horrifying.much is burned, much is left in piles to be found by future archaeologists.
Just based on spraying, i would guess the top worst ones would be mango, annona, wax apple. Lots of fruit are sprayed but aome specues do fine without.
Ones that should be easy to find organic are pineapple, banana (this industry greatly improved here once Dole showed up and cleaned up the idiocy), dragon fruit.
Some crops are insanely bad for the environment such as watermelon (heavy spray and grown in river beds), cabbage, cuucmbers, tomatoes, almost anything leafy really.
I make my purchases based on a number of things but ir chemicals i pay for organic on things that have numerous nooks.and.crannies are are next to impossible to wash well. Like broccoli, cabbage. Things with peels i am mor lenient on like banana.
Most of them aren’t. I had a piece of land a while back that was littered with half-buried shreds of plastic mulch that had clearly been there for years if not decades.
Tht is exactly the problem, and tge term biodegradable is a farce.
It means the plastics degrade, not transform into something else. As they become microplastic they are able to enter the tissues of plants and animals. This is a big problem as we are literally eating plastics, and more research is needed on the effecta. But so far the studies arent looking good…
So ya, i highly recommend not using biodegradable plastics, especially on farmland as it literally ends up in the tissues of the crop. You want thick, non biodegradable that can be used for many years and removed when worn out.
