Yi He Garden Introduction
This is the "Countryside Happy Food Time" series event organized by the Hsinchu County Local Specialty Industry Development Association—Yihe Garden / Table in the Rice Fields, featuring local specialty ingredients from Hsinchu County, inviting everyone to come and taste. The countryside feast at Yihe Garden welcomes guests with local ingredients. Yihe Garden is located in Ruanchiao Village, zhudong Township, an important starting point in Hsinchu County's water resources development history, and also an ideal cycling route. The entire Ruanchiao area has about 12 hectares of farmland, of which 85% is planted with rice, 10% with vegetables, and 5% with personal crops. Most of the rice in Ruanchiao is organically grown, and the organic rice production cooperative has its own milling, drying, and packaging equipment, which has previously won first place in the national organic rice competition. When visitors come to Yihe Garden, they are encouraged to take home this limited edition of happiness. Chen Lirong creates an organic living experience at Yihe Garden. Chen Lirong, the operator of Yihe Garden, is the son-in-law of Ruanchiao Village and has developed a tech-savvy approach over time, allowing him to summarize an "optimized" management method from the vegetable planting process. First, he adopts "planned cultivation." Customers' ordering periods last four months, and payments are made in advance, meaning that planting starts only after an order is confirmed. Therefore, the leftover vegetables when delivering weekly to subscribers do not exceed five bags, avoiding the problem of oversupply. Chen Lirong diversifies and diversifies the operations of this farm. He has promoted urban residents to come to the countryside to farm, and has set up a course on "Organic Vegetable Planting and Health" at a community college, which was selected as an excellent academic course for the 99th academic year, attracting urban students to come here to practice organic farming techniques and experience rural life. Subsequently, he launched a one-day or half-day "Food and Agriculture Education Experience Camp," which can form a group with more than 20 people, attracting many farmer unions, kindergartens, elderly universities, and parent-child families to participate. AIESEC International Volunteers Come to Taiwan for Experience. Three years ago, the AIESEC National Chiao Tung University chapter sought a practical farm in Hsinchu County for international volunteers to stay for 6 to 8 weeks to engage in organic agriculture. AIESEC students first stayed at the farm briefly to experience it, found it feasible, and began recruiting overseas students from AIESEC to stay in Taiwan starting from the summer of 2012. From Monday to Friday, international students work on the farm at Yihe Garden, and on weekends, they travel around Taiwan with the students from National Chiao Tung University. Observing the students working in the fields, Chen Lirong noted that the busy seasons are during winter and summer vacations when many groups need to be accommodated. After these vacations, only he and another elder continue farming. In fact, even on weekdays, this agricultural ambassador of Hsinchu County is not idle, as he is still busy with various visiting groups discussing and exchanging organic agriculture, and facilitating local agricultural exchange activities organized by the Hsinchu County Agricultural Development Association. This tech-savvy farmer who has established a communication platform by the Shanjing Stream in Zhudong has become the best spokesperson for agricultural tourism in Hsinchu County.
