Society
Taiwan farmer planting seeds of success
By Xie Yu and Zhu Xingxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-03 06:46
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 Taiwan fruit farmer Lin Maosheng shows oranges he grows at his orchard in Luoyuan county, Fujian province, on Jan 25.[China Daily/Zhu Xingxin] |
Taiwan fruit farmer overcomes odds to grow mainland business
LUOYUAN, Fujian: Other than the company of his two dogs, several chickens and geese at his simple bungalow, Taiwan fruit farmer Lin Maosheng will be spending this Spring Festival alone.
It will be the eighth time he is celebrating the Chinese New Year on the mainland in this way.
Lin, 66, left his wife, three sons and nine grandchildren in Taiwan. He has to look after what he said are more than 5,000 "mute sons" in his orchard in Luoyuan county, Fujian province.
"My fruit trees cannot talk, but they will tell me if they feel well by blossoming or bearing fruit," Lin said as he deftly used a band-aid on a new cut he suffered from pruning pear trees in the morning.
At the back of his house, early cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Yellow and red oranges weighed down branches, while nearby grapefruit had grown bigger than a man's fists.
Some fruit trees were also hanging empty.
"Those were eaten by the birds. Even they know my oranges are delicious," Lin said.
Indeed, Lin is famous for his produce. He holds a record for corn production and was selected as one of the "Top Ten Most Outstanding Farmers" in Taiwan in 1985.
Lin said he started growing fruit on the mainland in 2002 as he "was pestered beyond endurance" in his previous job in his hometown of Yongfeng village, Taichung county.
Lin acted as Yongfeng's village head for 10 years from 1992. But all his energy was taken up by village matters, such as sending wedding cards, arranging funerals or fixing street lamps for his residents.
"Elections are everything in Taiwan and I had to ingratiate myself with the voters, whether I liked it or not," Lin said.
But when the Chinese mainland approved the setting up of cross-Straits agricultural cooperation pilot projects in Fujian in 1997 and introduced a number of favorable policies, Lin decided to take the opportunity to try and get back the "simple happiness" of growing and harvesting.
As a pioneering region for cross-Straits cooperation, Fujian itself has attracted 2,177 Taiwan-invested agricultural programs since the early 1980s. Last year, trade volume between Fujian and Taiwan rocketed by 75 percent and a regional regulation was passed to encourage further cooperation.
Still, Lin faced a number of obstacles when he first started out on the mainland.
"I grew star fruit in 2002 but they did not last the year. I opted for Chinese green dates in 2003 and failed again in 2004," Lin said as he pruned pear trees that he planted after 2005.
"The guavas did ok during the first three years but they died in the abnormally cold spring of 2005."
Temperatures here are 6 to 8 C lower than that in Taichung and unsuitable for some varieties of Taiwan fruit. Based on trial and error, Lin finally found some of his best bets for the mainland, such as oranges, grapefruit, pears and lemon.
But the difficulties Lin faced went beyond the natural environment. In 2005 and 2006, he received several official documents from Taiwan warning him not to bring germ chits from the island to the mainland.
"That happened when Chen Shui-bian was in power. Now the Kuomintang is in office and encourages cross-Straits cooperation, so I don't have to worry about that anymore," Lin said.
Last year, he harvested 90,000 kg of pears. But due to fierce market competition, he did not make a significant profit. This year, Lin said he will be able to bring forward the pear harvest by 20 days, which will give him a higher profit.
"The buds appear earlier than those of common pear trees. As long as I see a little hope, I will make the most beautiful dreams," he said.
Within a month, his farm will turn into a sea of snow-white pear flowers.
"It will be so beautiful you won't want to go anywhere else," Lin said.
Spending 11 months each year on the mainland and often working late into the night, Lin said he has no plans to retire.
But he does have plans to look for his roots in Zhangzhou, which is also located in Fujian, about 400 km away from the provincial capital Fuzhou.
He found his clansmen in Zhangzhou during an agriculture exchange opportunity.
Family archives in Taiwan also show Lin as the sixth generation after his ancestors moved from Fujian to Taiwan.
"I plan to make a copy of some of the records which my clansmen keep in Zhangzhou, so that we will have a complete family tree," Lin said.
He has also introduced many of his former friends in Taiwan to invest and plant on the mainland, in Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces.
"I will not leave this orchard, not until I am too old to walk by myself," Lin said.
