Not really, thats just a misleading generalization. Any trees with small canopies (no soil protection from rain), with small root systems, grown as a monoculture on steep slopes with heavy use of chemicals are bad. Not ābetel nut trees are badā.
Harder to make the narrative on FB with the former already simplistic description hehe
Edit. Not saying betel nut trees are good to grow for a region. They are a legal narcotic with low nutritional benefits. So its a luxury crop to be sure. For enjoyment.
Land is way too expensive to buy for farming. Unless niche or high end markets. Everyone rents. 2000~6000/fen/year is standard. The cost isnt rent, its setting up and maintaining.
Organic certification is a scam. Its just a cash grab from all angles. Essentially meanigless in every respect. The only reason, and i mean ONLY reason w certify is because government land leases get more years sometimes. Otherwise its a joke to be honest. And training for organic is free. If children grow up with critical thinking being important, organic is easy as pie to get into. Maybe a few hundred hours reading and the same experimenting and youre well ahead of the crowd. Save the tuition for labor costs
Small plots is ahuge problem here. And this is reflected in the big lack of decebt machinery used to setup. You can rent more easily, the issue is the plots are not together often and get fragmented which adds to both logistic and labor costs. This is probably the biggest hurdle. But even if you find aplot that is 100 hectares, not many have the tens of millions needed to get it into operation. Start small, build up. Or like many farmers, have rich families with land.
If farmers markets are the big business plan, one is probbaly doomed fromt he beginning. People do it and get by. But farmers that make bank rarely consider those. If anything, they may consider supplying those.
Damn. gambling seems like a massive reason people lose their fortunes in taiwan. Its really sad. The first farmland i bought was a guys son gambled away and it was sell the farm or Mr. Li and crew will start cutting finger tips. Kind of freaky, his dad sneakily filmed me for a couple years following. Gambling bad. Working good.
Unlike farming, gambling is not a garaunteed income.
Thereās been a generational wave of deaths and retirements among the farmers and tradesmen I know here in the Tokachi sub prefecture of Japan. When I first arrived here it was relatively easy to get things done but now itās like pulling teeth. Farm laborers work contract and are treated like prima donnas. Skilled laborers Iāve relied on over the years fit me into the schedules now as favors, not because they need my business. Local farmers and their families are beating themselves to death working long hours getting spring plowing and planting done. Covid restrictions cut off the supply of foreign labor but it was never a reliable source of labor because itās too remote and rural here to appeal to foreign laborers.
Taiwan isnt so different. The government really slit their wrists by treating foreign labor and immigrants the way they do. Here the big difference is the population is not quite as old. not far off either. Younger labor is so slow to the point of bankrupting a person. I pretty much only hire older people due to this reason. I would be better off working at 711 based on the young guys output i have seen. Its a long term problem for sure! Gotta setup lands for easier maintenance while there are still useful hands available.
In reality i feel this is why taiwan is so reliant on chemicals. Lack of decent cost to accomplishemnt ratio when it comes to workers.
Also why many farmers (even small farmers/market gardeners) configure things to use machines as much as possible. Itās not just a matter of willingness to work, but also skill. The average townie doesnāt seem to realise that even learning how to pick fruit at a decent rate takes quite a bit of practice.
Yeah, this. I think itās one reason farmers have traditionally been screwed over and kept at the bottom of the heap - they often donāt put enough effort into acquiring business skills, negotiating skills, etc. They also tend to be people who had ādoesnāt play well with other kidsā on their report card at school. Marketing and sales is one of the biggest costs/headaches that small farmers face, and if they got together on this theyād be a force to be reckoned with.
Farm labor is a lot harder than city people realize. Iām doing it all day long now and itās exhausting. You basically have to live the life to be toughened up enough to be any use economically.
Healthier than the gym, get healthier food than the supermarket, and its profitable to do at the same time
All profitable businesses are hard work. So i dont view this as a con really. Maybe when the rains stop and the sun shines with its 38 degrees head i will eat my words haha.
Yeah, this. I like feeling exhausted at the end of the day. Not to mention the fact that you end up looking fit AF.
Governments treat it as a point of pride that only 1% of the population (or whatever it is now) are working in agriculture. This is shameful. It means that far too many people are getting fat, sick and stressed in blue cubicles, doing pointless bullshit jobs.
The āhouseā always wins. Anyways, Iāve heard enough stories in Taiwan about people losing their houses and life savings and getting in a lot of debt on top, gambling.
I knew a lady who was going to organize some organic farmers and open a retail outlet in Taipei. That went nowhere as her son proved to not really want to work there and finding a shop is not as easy as they thoughtā¦and getting the farmers small outputs put together in orderly fashion to ship to Taiwan was not happening either. All of this is skills not all farmers possess or want to possessā¦and troublesome for sure. When I move back to northern Taipei I will probably try to do the same thing on a small scale without a retail operation. Just a bi-weekly shipment of stuff to me to redistribute to my friends. We have ordered such boxes of veggies and fruits while living in Taipei before but was expensive and not really what my wife wanted. Fruit from specific farmers seems more and more convenient to order.
We just have a few fruit trees to play around with. We have no growing skills and are constantly losing stuff to bugs, bad weather and disease. Can get some passion fruit, papayas, mulberries, dragon fruit, and guavasā¦and lemons. This year finally looking good for some avocados. Star fruitā¦not this year. Orangesā¦trees died. Other trees simply not cooperating with usā¦ha.
Right next to my land an old man has a very small plot growing fruit trees. He basically is just still taking care of the trees for exercise. When land prices were very high I encouraged him to try to sell the land as that plot is long and narrow which is not attractive at all to farmers. He said this was his last plot of land. All others had been sold. He did not want to sell as he said he son will just come and ask him for money when he hears he sold some land. So he just holds onto it and gets some exercise. He also leaves a bag of fruit at our door once per yearā¦
I agree this is the problem in taiwan. But it isnt farming r elated, it is dilligence and logistics related. Other industries have the exact same issues. Many a company literally seems like they dont want business. Even the huge ones. They shrug off new business like its a mosquito. It has led to some real issues here in my opinion. It has become dangerous relying on a handful of corporations to keep the core spinning.
However, there are loads of āorganicā stores in taiwan now . Island wide ,but especially up north. And expensive ones to boot. Most people give up because it takes time and effort . The ones that dont make it, almost always. Though in my opinion, as a farmer ,the best business plan is wholesaling to select manufacturers. let them deal with marketing and all that stuff. This is where contract farmin makes like simple. here is unreal amounts of money flying around ,one just needs to stick their hand out and earn it.
Its not farmers cant or dont have skills to do any of this . Lots do. It is because, just like anyone else (be it city office workers, academics or engineers), they just dont have the drive. Anyone can do anything if they chose to and work hard. For some living with their parents playing video games all day is their plan. To each their own, but failure or poor income certainly is not industry specific.
I find taiwan is a nation of middlemen and consultants. Waaaaaay too many. Its the culture to work homogenously in many cases. Rarely do people change their own oil, wire their own house related things etc. We have become addicted to fast, cheap, disposable fixes/replacements. This is at the core of why so many people dont succeed or grow a business well here. Those that arent arent like that tend to do very well here . Its a relatively easy country to make money in when compared to elsewhere. I guess, in my opinion, success is psychological more than an industry type of issue.
He is right in doing that in my opinion. He is smarter than most!
It is indeed a serious problem in taiwan with the younger enerations being incredibly entitled and sellfish. But to be fair, the older generation made their choices in how to raise them, so it is sometimes hard to find tears. Generally speaking, there are the few gems that just got a shit hand too.
