Toucheng Leisure Farm - Children and the Farm

Times have changed for children. Because of globalization and the seemingly absence of time, it appears as if the world has grown but its time has shrunken. Indeed, nowadays one not only has to compete on the local job market, but in fact, on the world market. For this reason, parents worry about the future of their children and try to educate them as much as possible. School, tutoring, playing an instrument, learning another language and being good at sports are just a few examples of the pressures a child of today’s century has to bear. The majority of these activities are indoors, proofing that in the course of time the main activities of children have shifted from outdoor activities to indoor activities.

Often the importance of experiencing and growing up in direct contact with the environment is underestimated. Indeed the majority of children from big cities have never experienced actual live on a farm, being in direct contact with animals and farming, knowing its value and sensitivity. Therefore, it often appears that simple questions like, where does milk, honey, or rice come from, are harder for these children to answer than calculating a difficult mathematic formula. In Taiwan, people often say: “They eat pork, but have never seen them walk!” Surely, the appreciation of food has declined and is taken for granted as it is always easily attainable, and nothing to work for.

The Taiwanese Government became aware of this erosion of ties to the environment, and is currently in proceedings to counteract this development. In fact, deliberations of making educational trips and excursions into the nature mandatory for each student are seriously discussed. Movements, such as ‘green-thinking’ and ‘sustainability’ proof to have increasing impact on not only organizational but also governmental decision making.

In order to realize this idea of this new educational policy, leisure resort farms, such as the Toucheng Leisure Farm in Yilan County (one hour from Taipei) play a crucial role. At this farm environmental awareness is highly valued and one of its core principles. Every week, especially in the months of June until August, children of all ages visit the farm and experience traditional Chinese farming, where nature is treated equal to human kind. The educational objectives of the Toucheng Leisure Farm are in accordance with the ambitions of the Taiwanese educational changes, as they name on their webpage:

1. Knowing the world, befriending creation, getting close to nature in a first-hand experience.
2. From books we read about the farm, forest and field, but we must also experience the sound, sight, smell, taste and touch the real world
3. Knowledge of the mountains and water, understanding it harmonious balance

One of the Toucheng Leisure Farm’s activities realizing these principles, where children are acquainted with nature and its use for human nurture is working on the paddy field. Here the children learn how to plant, harvest, thresh, and pound rice. The following pictures illustrate how children are not only watching but in fact actively planting and producing rice themselves.


Experienced farmers of the Toucheng Leisure Farm show and assist these children how rice was produced in the traditional Chinese way.

Morover children are introduced to the principleof recycling, where seemingly useless remains of the rice production, its lawn, are reused for making ropes. While the fun-factor of this experience is of main importance for these children, other insights are unconsciously gained, namely the workings as well as the difficulties of cultivating rice, which lead to growing a greater appreciation of food as a valuable commodity.

In the course of one week one can notice how the children personally develop. As children are curious by nature, they quickly become independent and explore the environment by themselves, taking risks while hiking, catching chicken, and swimming in the river. Moreover, as they are in groups with children of other nationalities, they learn in a natural manner the simplicity of cultural understanding and equality.


Many other activities, besides working at the paddy, are offered at the Toucheng Leisure Farm, where crucial values of sustainability and green-thinking are experienced by the visitor. Information can be found under http://www.tcfarm.com.tw/en/html/aboutus.html. 


Never before the ideals Toucheng Leisure Farm upholds, have been more important, as our generation is ruthlessly confronted with ecological problems such as resource scarcity, climate change, and environmental pollution and exploitation. Hence, it is of utmost importance to educate the next generation, our children, in such a way that they grow up with a ‘green’ awareness, where human kind is not superior to this planet, of whom our life depends. If children are acquainted with these ideal in early age, it will be natural for them to include these values in any decision they will make in the future, private or professionally.


By Deschna