Self-sufficient Supply and Empowerment in Agricultural Inputs in Daxi

Challenges and Objectives

Collaboration Partners and Roles

The project was initiated by Lung-Han Chiu with whom Chengchi University has been developing a long-term collaboration with, since the institution supports him in developing rural revitalisation proposals and looking for government subsidies and fundings. Chiu has also received support through his wide network of villagers, farmers, cooperatives and relevant organisations and academic institutions. Especially through close relationship with farmers’ association, Chiu could find interested farmers to cooperate with. Together, they have formed a social enterprise called Together Regional Circular Design Co., Ltd. (in Chinese as 在一起地域循環設計有限公司) which is the driving force of this project even after its closure. The project received funding from Small and Medium Enterprise Administration – Ministry of Economic Affairs and was monitored by Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

Revitalisation Activities

The project not only helped solve the farmers’ problem of fertilizer costs by using self-sufficient organic compost in organic farmland, it also helped improve the soil quality and crop yields, establish a healthy farming environment, and encourage farmers to switch to eco-friendly or organic farming.

Through the online platform, the project empowered farmers and villagers from Daxi by allowing them to receive the latest information on the platform, and through online courses, learn about the development context of rural industries, and get in touch with issues of how rural areas can keep up with environmental sustainability.

Throughout the project, farm partners had gathered together to cultivate manpower, promote their products, develop an annual user-pay cooperation model, and operate sustainably as a social enterprise. By receiving support from the shared platform in the form of technologies, venues, equipment, raw materials, and a series of courses, the farms started producing organic compost for their own use, saving the cost of purchasing fertilizers. Even though the project mostly focused on platform members and learners, it was still open to interested individuals to participate.

Revitalisation Outcome

By the end of the project, an “agricultural materials for self-sufficient supply platform” website and an “agricultural circular economy talent training base” have been set up. Two training courses for self-production and self-use of organic compost with a total time of 36 hours, 2 sessions of organic agriculture education with a total time of 8 hours, 4 batches of farm practice courses have been delivered, 2 local agricultural and horticultural cultural and creative products have been developed and put into production, an annual production capacity of 2,000-kilogram compost for self-sufficient purpose have been reached, saving each farm more than NT$100,000 in fertilizer costs. In addition, 40 farm members and 50 young learners and promoters have been recruited, 6 youths have been attracted to come back to hometown through rural labor mobility as the project introduces a sustainable economic model which serves as an attraction to bring young people back to rural area. Although the result is still limited due to the scope and time of the project, the operation is still on-going and has the potential to bring better results in the future.

Lessons learnt from the project also serve as a guideline for the next revitalisation and academic-rural community partnership projects. It is important to note that problem-identifying and research ability are vital in this kind of partnership since many solutions already exist in the community, however, require time and effort to be discovered and promoted. It is always difficult to persuade local community to change their traditional practice, however, the project has been successful to show an intersection of interests between the farmers who need reasonably-priced quality fertilizers and factories who seek to handle production waste with lowest cost. As a result, both parties realised the benefits of participating in the project and volunteered to provide their resources. This kind of partnership and collaboration can be applied to future projects to create greater impact on rural revitalisation.