Chairman Jin-Long Li, Head of the Taiwan agricultural family and Director Jun-Yi Lin jointly celebrated the birthday of the Agriculture Experiment Institute!

Dr. Jin-Long Li, former Chairman of the Commission of Agriculture, Mr. Juan-Yi Lin, Director of the Agriculture Experiment Institute, and Dr. Yong-Xiong Cheng, Director of Jia-Yi Branch of the Agriculture Experiment Institute, attended this great occasion. During the speech, Director Jin-Long Li particularly praised us: “We are very happy to receive the students from Taipei Municipal Bing-Jiang Junior High School. This is a good opportunity for them to get to know the crops that are closely related to us.” What he said coincided with the saying: “It’s more useful to travel for ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books.”

Dr. Jun-Yi Lin, Director, the Agriculture Experiment Institute, the Commission of Agriculture, the Executive Yuan

We went to sweet potato farm beside Line 119 of Dong Village, Xi-Hu Xiang, Miao-Li County to attend the “2005 Xi-Hu Sweet Potato Culture & Art Festival” on November 19, 2005. The activities included cooking sweet potato, digging sweet potato and presentation on Xi-Hu agricultural products and thanksgiving party of “Sweet Potato 1 and Sweet Potato 2”, etc. In order to promote Xi-Hu sweet potato, they also made many processed food in Xi-Hu, such as Taiwan-shaped sweet potato glutinous rice cakes, Xi- Hu Ice sweet potato, sweet potato balls, sweet potato ice bar, Fried sweet potato. These creative way of eating sweet potaoto did go beyond our experience! This sweet potato feast truly demonstrated the cultural features of the local specialty.

There is quite a lot of knowledge involved in piling up a kiln

We went to visit the roast kiln in Bei-Pu Xiang, Xin-Ju County. Through the arrangement and introduction of Mr. Ming-Zeng Zhuang, the farm host, we visited Uncle Sweet Potato, the 70-year-old Mr. Zhuang. He explained to us how our ancestors have radicated sweet potato to make it one of the important crops in this beautiful land since the Japanese occupation period. There are many processed food in Xi-Hu. The most attractive one is “ice sweet potato” that was developed and packaged by farmers. It is not only delicious, but also symbolizes a creative commerce. Ice sweet potato is a kind of processed food made of Tai-Agri No. 5 sweet potato. Other processed food, like fresh sweet potato, sweet potato bar, sweet potato balls, sweet potato vegetable bowl and sweet potato ice stick are made of Taoyuan No. 1.

In addition, Uncle Sweet Potato told of many old stories, e.g. sweet potato shed a light on the poor people in Taiwan, sweet potato’s transformation from early golden years, through the sluggish days, and to the highly treasured days, etc. The account was so detailed that we benefited a lot. Furthermore, Uncle Sweet Potato also talked about the necessity of using creative technology and changing operational pattern to enhance Taiwan’s competitiveness in coping with the government’s recent move of allowing foreign agricultural products to import to this island. The elaboration of the respected elderly was more than golden maxim to us.