Farmers also tend to have quite of lot of assets. Huge money tied up in real estate, machinery etc. Thats the hard part bein a farmer ,it can be expensive. Takes time to work and save up to buy the next upgrade.
And if it fails, like a typhoon or a freeze, it can hurt bad. Lots of those stories. The long term rich farmers never stretch themselves that thin though.
Nice greenhouse! What are the plans this season?
Cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, rocket, potatoes, sweet corn, spinach, lettuce.
I use my greenhouse as a lab for learning planting techniques, soil analysis, and varieties. I need to up my composting game big time though.
So whats the progress on getting a freeze drying machine?
Sourcing a couple of low cost freeze dryers from China to reverse engineer.
Why China? Why not reverse engineer better ones from the states or the EU? The Chinese ones are likely very low qualityā¦ Itās easier to reduce quality for cost than it is to increase themā¦
Much cheaper. I can make all my mistakes on them first.
So you can do this?
And what do you grow?
I contract farm. Like a prostitute, i will do whatever you pay me for 
but not grains or citrus, i have standards!
I prefer growing tree crops. But that has to be done on land owned or long term leases. As mentioned above , the government lands cant be rented to foreigners. Land price in taiwan is like 10x beyond reasonable value now (thanks to president Ma). So, i dont grow trees
Have some new fields waiing now to be tilled, but its been raining for a month straight and cant do itā¦waitingā¦
But donāt tree crops take years to develop? How do you sustain while the trees mature? Is that built into the contract?
I canāt answer for Explant, but I also prefer tree crops and there are various ways of dealing with these issues. The most obvious one is that you grow other things between the trees while they mature. I plant a mix of tree species, some with an expected long-term payback (eg., fruit trees) and others whose purpose is to provide shade, biomass and ecosystem services. Tree trimmings create excellent compost - particularly in the tropics where things decompose very fast. You can use that as a soil amendment and/or as a growing medium for annual cash crops.
Growing trees on leased land is indeed a big risk.
So you can contract and produce independently at the same time. Win/win.
Contract farming sounds a bit risky for my taste. But yeah, running multiple projects in farming - whatever form that takes - is key to resilience. The guys who are just growing hundreds of acres of corn or soy and nothing else are basically putting all their chips on red.
Absolutely agree. For farming to be sustainably profitable, diversity is key. I am a firm believer in processing your own crops as well. That cuts out 5 middlemen. Much more work, but money takes workā¦
For me i only contract farm with deposit and contract. Customer is no risk if c rops fail (i fugg it up). But no refunds if they pull out. Takes time and reputaoon to gain cusomers willing to do this. But many factories enjoy an agreed upon price to avoid inflation spikes.
We farm and use everything. I sell food, nursery stock, seed, compost, research materials you name it. If the farm can produce it I sell it. Or i use it in house which saves costs (essentially making tax free money)
Like finley says, polyculture is key. Even big AG is doing it here. Common simple examples are growing pineapple when establishing an orchard. Growing pumpkins drectly after rice to avoid tilling and save loads on weed control. The cacao/betel nut combo that everyone does now. These are super intricate, but the typical chemical farmers are often doing these now. Step in the right direction
Could you use Taiwan youth working holiday makers, seems it will open up soon. May Taiwanese work on farms in Aussie & NZ and think some do in Japan?
I heard Binglan trees are bad for the soil, is that true (I do see more cacao tree though, but the fruit is hard to process so sometime I just eat the pulp as it has nice mango -kiwi taste to me)
Just a few thoughts from the little experience I have from living in the Taiwan countryside.
Land prices
Due to rising land prices there is no way for a new small farmer to buy farm land and make a profit. A new farmer (unless has good financial situation to start with) must rent land. Next door to me is 4000 ping plot of land renting for NT$20,000 year. Current land price is about NT$6000/ping.
Training for organic farmers
I have sat in on some training (freeā¦sponsored by government) held to encourage new organic farmers. I note that most of the people attending did not even yet have any farm land to use. Meanwhile, heard most organic farms struggle to survive.
Organic certification
My farm land has organic certification and we get a monetary award each year. My wife basically likes the process of applying. We do not sell any of our fruits or vegetables.
Labor shortage
As older workers can no longer workā¦harder and harder to find farm workers. I know a farmer who has to beg to find people to harvest his fruits. The guy on the land next to us had a foreign worker for a year but the worker left for higher pay in the city. Previously, his two sons worked with him (instead of attending high school) but one eventually quit and one died in auto accident.
Small is a problem
Small farmers can be flexibleā¦like the guy near us who had 3 plots of land (all rented) and switches his crops every time. He basically sees what pricing looks like then plants that type. But he also has run into gluts in the market which sees him selling at low price.
But these small farmers are renting land, renting farm equipment, buying fertilizer, and loads and loads of pesticidesā¦and struggling to employ part-time workers.
Near us is also a larger organic farm. I do not know their details. However, seems like with a larger size they can keep full time workers, buy large amounts of organic fertilizer, have promotion events like families helping potato harvesting, and on-site sales.
Small farmer markets
Yes, would be good for farmers to skip middlemen. Seems some are successful using the internet for direct sales. In Hualien we have gone to the organic market held once per week. However, over time few farmers attended as sales were small and they did not have time to drive so far into town. And in my humble opinion, not all farmers are good businesspeopleā¦those are two different fields.
No person with margins can afford the production loss of vacationers. Its a beautiful story, but generally ends there as far as a proper business if i am being honest. Wwoofer style actually costs the host money. Has to be pretty basic labor or small bnb type gardens it seems. I cant afford a person not to āget itā by the second day of work to be honest. Takes many years to gain experience enough to even weed a garden properly and efficiently it seems now.