Workshop 2 - New Ruralism experiments

Location: Taipei and Taoyuan

Date: March 14 – March 16, 2014

吃吃喝喝, 都會農學

EatEat DrinkDrink, Urban Agriculture

Fee: 250 USD – Good Food Guaranteed!

Agriculture is more than a way of production. It is a lifestyle. Urban dwellers also seek for the possibility of alternative urban-agri lifestyles. “Farming under sunrise, resting after dark” (日出而作，日末而息) is an agri-life paradigm shared by people with Chinese agricultural heritages before the rapid industrialization and massive urbanization in the mid twenty century. Working in a particular type of jobs without nurturing one’s own food is a new lifestyle evolving with the birth of urban growth for only about half century long. Confronting the serious climate changes, how to sustainable urban life has been one of the single most critical issue for everyone in the world. We advocate one could cultivate one’s food for one’s family or self. Growing food, eating and drinking are our default lifestyle for the majority urban residents in our time. 

In addition to “growing food”, our workshop brings you to explore how “eat” and “drink” could revitalize communities in the metropolitan area of around Taipei and Taoyuan. Within the 3 day journey, we grow food in community gardens of the Capital Taipei (Marc 15), picking tea leaves at the peri-urban Pinglin tea town (March 16), and making health food in small town of Longtan (Marc 17). The information of each day is explained below:

Day one (March 14): Digging Happy Farms in the Capital Taipei

 “Happy Farm” is a series of the so-called temporary community gardens in the National Taiwan University (NTU) neighborhood. Nowadays, “happy farms” could also refer to similar temporary community gardens in Taipei. Why have temporary happy farms make Taipei citizens so happy? 

Within the less than hundred year long urbanizing period, urban agriculture has always been one of the key mechanisms to revitalize the local economy and food supplies during wars, oil crisis and economic depressions. Piles of research have demonstrated the significant physical and socio-psychological contributions that urban agriculture has done for city dwellers. However, In the case of Taiwan, plots and patches for planting vegetables or feed animals in urban neighborhoods were seldom legally defined. Even worse, unlike the Capital Growth campaign targeting to get 2012 new urban edible lands by the year of 2012 in London, the action of planting edible landscape is considered illegal in Taiwan. In the case of the capital city Taipei, by law, planting fruit trees and vegetables in parks and public spaces is forbidden. In other words, planting cabbage in a neighborhood park in Taiwan is considering as a crime. Maybe, it is not as serious as stolen or robbery, but it is certainly unlawful. In the case of Gao-Xiong, a group of eight retired elderly cultivated their vegetable garden on a vacant lot for several years. They were called by the local court and sued for the unauthorized use of the state’s property because of developing their personal garden patches (August 23, 2011). “We were taking care of the vacant lot, removing weeds, and guarding the place from drugs and crimes. Why the State government sues us?” One senior expressed his feeling and depressed. Neighbors were also surprised by the situation. “Why could not allow grand daddies and grandmas do gardening exercises in the vacant lot?” One neighbor asked.

To grow food and feed ourselves in Taipei is so challenging and precious. Therefore, we invited our workshop participants to touch the dirt, dig the patch, and grow the food with us, the “poor” Taipei citizens together. Growing food in community gardens is something that you might take it for granted in your own city, but we fight our right to make it happen here in Taiwan!

Day two (March 15): Blue Magpie TEAgriculture, Pinglin, New Taipei City

Peri-urban areas are often over-looked places with depressed environmental quality and economic vitality. Day two, we visit the Pinglin area that is about 30 minute driving distance from the world-famous Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan. It locates within the watershed of the Feitsui Reservoir. Due to the rigid drinking water special regulation, the area could not develop anything but only tea farming. In order to boost tea production, local farmers have been over applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides that wash into the water of the Feitsui Reservoir. Even worse, local economy has been dramatically damaged when the HWY 5 tunnel was open in 2006. To revitalize the community economy and preserve environment, our team has been experimenting the Blue Magpie TEAgriculture in this area since 2011.

Day two, we experience how could the Blue Magpie TEAgriculturel, an ecoagricultural based tea cultivation, could potentially revitalize the small town in the peri-urban Taipei. To challenge the mono-production tea cultivation landscape in Pinglin, since 2011, our team has been applying the participatory farming and eco-tea cultivation to the Pinglin Satoyama. Satoyama refers to how people manage foothill ecosystems around their home villages. Up to date, the dominant satoyama actions are focusing on rice-paddy landscapes in small towns, peri-urban areas, and rural villages. Instead of rice-paddy satoyama, our Blue Magpie TEAgriculture experiment the equally critical Chinese cultural landscape, tea cultivations.

Day three (March 16): Tasting Healthy Dragon Landscape, Longtan, Taoyuan

Day three, we take tour bus to Longtan together. Longtan is a small Hakka tourist town in Taoyuan, the northern Taiwan. With its superior geography, convenient traffic network and a high tech science park, Longtan has become Taoyuan’s window for technology. However, in spite of the rapid development and industrialization of Longtan, the old quarters have been overlooked. Small shops and restaurants have been vital but no characteristics. The Longyuan Temple serves as the local religious center, but dismissed by outsiders. The surrounding peri-urban communities produce high quality vegetables and tea, but lack of branding, marketing and promotion.

Eat and drink have been the core of Taiwanese culture. We invite you to taste and make Longtan’s healthy food together. With local communities, we brainstorm how to marketing these humble communities to the world.

Organizer: Dr. Sheng-lin CHANG

Associate Professor

Director, New Ruralsim Research and Development Center

Graduate Institute of Building and Planning

National Taiwan University

Taipei, Taiwan

EMAIL: shenglinchang@gmail.com

Contact person: Mr. Chen-yu LIEN
EMAIL: chenyu.lien@gmail.com

Mr. Run-lin HUANG
EMAIL: runlinhuang@gmail.com

Mr. Ze-jyun YANG
EMAIL: ilovebooks18@gmail.com