Young, blogging rice farmer touts 'Kuso' way

His success is in part owing to the fact that the land he works sits in the Huadong Rift Valley, with the Central Mountain Range on the western side and the East Coast Range on the east, a natural corridor long famed for its fertility and good rice.

As far back as Taiwan's occupation by the Japanese between the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, rice produced in the valley was shipped to Japan as tribute to the Japanese emperor.

However, this heyday has been long gone for Hsieh and his fellow farmers in the valley, which became especially obvious earlier this year when a string of cold spells hit Taiwan after the year's first crop had been planted out.

By the time the crops were about to mature in late May, they found to their dismay that the crop had failed to set grain and they lost the entire crop.

The unprecedented disaster — the worst calamity that local rice farmers said they had ever witnessed or heard of in a century —caused all two hectares of Hsieh's Taigeng No. 4 crop to disappear down the drain and left 60 percent of another hectare damaged. Fortunately, he said, crops of the other two rice varieties on his other nine hectares were only slightly affected.

Hsieh said the "empty hull" problem was much more detrimental than the onslaught of a typhoon, flooding or any pest scourge.

"My heart went out to my fellow farmers, most of whom are in their 50s and 60s,most of whom are their households' only breadwinners and most of whom had given over the majority of their paddy to Taigeng No. 4," he said.

Undaunted, Hsieh said he is planning to increase his farming for the second harvest this year, adding eight hectares to make a total of 20 hectares under the plough, in order to meet demand.

Young as he is, Hsieh has already developed the characteristics of a philanthropic entrepreneur.

He frequents an institution for people suffering from mental problems not far from his village, where his wife works as a nurse.

From that institution, he has hired four patients who were able to take up manual labor jobs at his seedling development quarters, giving them a sense of worth while allowing Hsieh to save on cost.

"Farming is stereotyped as backbreaking and profitless, but I'm determined to be a cheerful farmer," Hsieh said.

"To me, the best compliment is people saying to me that 'your rice brings happiness,'" Hsieh added.

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