There is an indigenous pastor in Shizi Township, Pingtung County who promotes organic agriculture in Xinlu Community. She is Master Hui-mei Huang, who was born in Wenquan Tribe of Jinlun Village in Taimali Township, Taitung County.
She has never imagined being a pastor who promotes organic agriculture. She spent her childhood at Jinlun Hot Spring and was the eldest in the family. She had four younger brothers and one sister. The family had the field. However, in 1982, due to mudflows and landslides caused by Andy Typhoon, the territory was destroyed. At the phase of secondary school, she studied in Bing Mao Junior School and was moved by Spring Gospel Mission led by Pastor Mei-gui Wen who preached in Jinlun when she was in Grade 2. She was thus converted as a Christian. Subsequently, she passed the examination of National Taitung Girls' Senior High School and studied in Taitung. After graduation, she learned theology in China Qilu Theological Seminary in northern Taiwan. One and half years later, her father asked her to return to Taitung for work. She learned the techniques of hairdressing. At the year 23, she got married in Tainan and in the next year, she had her son and daughter. Afterwards, she encountered the frustration of divorce and the death of her mother.
In 2001, with the encouragement of Pastor Rebecca Doyle, an American missionary of Free Methodist Church, Pastor Huang applied for Holy Light Theological Seminary with the part-time job of hairdressing. One year after graduation, she was assigned to New Road Free Methodist Church and promoted as pastor in 2013.
In Xinlu Community, besides preaching, she focused on community service. Cultivation of organic vegetables was another task of the community of church. In 2012, it founded not only agriculture production and marketing group, but also the brand “Lionvege”. The origin of organic agriculture was touching. In Shizi Township, since the young people moved to work in other cities, the rate of outward migration was high. The fields were fallow. Therefore, Pastor Huang recruited the members in Xinlu Community and led to the certification of vegetables in agriculture production and marketing group. In 2012, they obtained “harmony organic agriculture certification”. In 2017, 13 members of agriculture production and marketing group obtained the validation of Zhonghua Certification Co., Ltd. The 11th vegetable production and marketing group of Shizi Township was the only one acquiring organic agriculture certification in Shizi Township.
Nevertheless, most of the members in agriculture production and marketing group are the retired soldiers, public officials and teachers who returned to the hometown from the cities. They were elderly and had less strength for agricultural work. Besides, in the summer, due to the change of climate, it was not easy to increase the output and the community residents’ incomes. “At most, there were 15 workers and now only 7 of them stayed”, Pastor Huang sighed.
Tajen University, Pingtung was subsidized by the second phase of USR of Ministry of Education in 2020. 3 sub-projects are executed in Shizi Township: development of healthy medicinal cuisine of original flavor, local health tourism and cultural and creative program of skills. Pastor Huang and her husband guided the people and friends to actively participate in various programs and served as the consultant of development project of healthy medicinal cuisine of original flavor. They led the teachers and students to visit the organic farm they operated in Shizi Township. By on-site explanation of Pastor Huang, they learned about local industry and agricultural products and specialties. In cultural and creative programs of skills, they visited the historical museum of Shizi Township and the craftsmen in the community who could simply work with one table without splendid decoration, shop signs and promotion. It was something we cannot imagine in the city. The craftsmen shared their process of creation and directly interacted with the students. The teachers and students were considerably touched. The program of local health tourism developed cultural tourism industry of Shizi Township. She was the collaborative teacher of the course “tribal industry and tourism development” and the expert of resource checking course of tribal tourism and cultural industry. She taught students the checking skill of tourism resources of agricultural production industry in Shizi Township and introduced the tribal organic industry and vegetables. She worked with the Department of Tourism to investigate the cultural tourism resources in Shizi Township and write the manual of tourist guide. Pastor Huang always participates in USR activities of the school to serve the tribal people. We expect that Shizi Township can develop cultural tourism industry by cooperating with USR program of the school to improve the people’s lives.
In the future, Pastor Huang will make efforts with the people on the cultivation of organic vegetables in Xinlu Community. We expect the participation of more resources and manpower to not only provide healthy ingredients to the society, but also increase the incomes of the tribe and improve the tribal living environment by organic production and contract farming.