【Season Limited】The Hottest Treasure in Meinong's Fields: White Jade Radish

White Jade Radish and its processing pickled products

When talking about Meinong, people generally think of its well-known Hakka flat noodles and paper umbrella. Nowadays, White Jade Radish has been the latest and hottest representative of this rural village, especially in Fall.

The new icon rising just happens in this decade. Before that, Meinong was called "the Kingdom of Tobacco" because the production of tobacco took over 25% of all in Taiwan, ranking first. The income from growing tobacco in winter can likely support the family for the whole year. However, due to the policy change, the profit of tobacco was not stably attractive, so farmers was forced to find out alternative target and radish was chosen.  

In reality radish has been one of the crops in Meinong in Fall. People usually grow few radish for family dinner. In addition to cook fresh radish, Meinong women is good at transforming extra radish to marinated food without being wasted. Since radish has been rooted in the society as part of culture, it was not hard to be accepted by farmers and overwhelmingly appears in the fields. 

Different from the radish usually found in the market, the radish from Meinong is a specific species, named as White Jade by Meinong Farmers' Association. The name came from not only its relatively small size like delicate jade, but also a couplet mentioning "White Jade born from the land" in Hakka three-section compound Fofong. As "White Jade Radish" is well-known in the consumer market, Meinong Farmers' Association promote radish as a brand by applying for a trademark for "White Jade Radish" to protect the right of local farmers from being copied.

The trademark of White Jade Radish

Following the trend of sixth industrialisation, the promotion of White Jade Radish focuses on not only production, but also processing, distribution and stimulating tourism. Regarding the production, the Association controls the quality of the radish from selling farmers the recognised seed, educating them the knowledge of fertilisation and pesticide safety, to encouraging them applying for the qualification of Traceable Agricultural Products (TAPs). Moreover, to satisfy the huge demand of radish processing, the Association prepares radish washing machines to help farmers deal with fresh radish (usually with sands) efficiently. In the peak season, farmers have to queue for using the machines.

The course for radish farmers

Radish-washing machine

What makes White Jade Radish famous is the radish plucking experience. The Association launches a White Jade Radish Festival and invites the public to be the shareholders of the radish growing. The shareholders are pledged of the whole radishes in a unit of radish field. This kind of rural experiential tour successfully attracts amount of urban residents, especially families and corporations to join the event and creates more value than pure selling radish.

Until now, every Fall the whole Meinong is surrounded with White Jade Radish. Not only found in the fields, lots of fresh radishes are also shown in the booths on the streets; meanwhile Meinong women are busy for processing various pickled radishes. In addition to be the member of the shareholders of the Association, visitors can easily enjoy the fun of plucking radish by just following the signage of the road and parking along radish field. It is one of the best time of visiting Meinong to feel radish all around and to find how radish reboots new rural economy.