Mainland-based Taiwan fruit farmers call for subsidy

Taiwan is well-known for its high quality fruit. As cross-strait trade and investment exchanges strengthen, more Taiwan farmers have come to the mainland to grow fruit native to Taiwan. But they're facing the common problem of being short of cash flows for years, before they can taste the fruits of their labour.

2 weeks to go before the harvest. 45-year-old Taiwan businessman Wang Xunwu is carefully inspecting every plant at his passion fruit base. He first set up fruit farms on the mainland in 2006, mostly growing peaches and persimmons, which take at least 4 years to bear fruit. So the fast-growing passion fruit became his path to income while waiting to reap the rewards of his long-term investments.

Wang Xunwu, Passion Fruit Farmer, said, "Growing fruits is a long-term project. I have to keep investing in the first few years while getting nothing back. That's why I started planting passion fruits in the same year, and used the money to run my other fruit bases."

Wang Xunwu hopes more agricultural subsidies can be handed out to help him counter this problem.

Lin Nan, Xiamen, Fujian Province, said, "Think lemon is the normal-size yellow fruit you find in the supermarket, you will change your mind completely in this lemon farm. For example, this fragrance lemon is almost four times as big as the normal one and has strong scent of citrus."

10 different types of lemons are cultivated in the mountain of Xiamen . And it all blossomed from He Weijun's hobby 10 years ago.

He Weijun, Lemon Farmer, said, "I really care about well-being and like cooking myself. I couldn't find the lemons I used in Taiwan when I first came to the mainland 10 years ago. So I started growing my own."

As his farm gradually expanded, the investment he pours in also increased to more than 3 million yuan. Even though he was not driven by making money when starting out, He Weijun decided to make the most of the farm and develop it as a resort.

"I like the environment and lemons here. I think it is a good place for the family to spend the weekend."

He Weijun, Lemon Farmer, said, "The benefits from this tourism project is much higher than selling fruits. But I hope there is some subsidy I can apply for, because agriculture is a really costly business, and it takes a long while to see the results."

He Weijun hopes that through his efforts and help from the government, more people will be able to have a taste of Taiwan fruit on the mainland.