“Smart and Lively Aquatic Village” Rebuilding fishing villages to encourage young farmers to move home: New horizons through smart and lively transformation
Yilan is at the core of the northern Taiwan fishery industry development. With ample marine resources brought by the surrounding Kuroshio Current and its fishery industry, Yilan is one of four major aquaculture regions in Taiwan. Fishery development has hundreds of years of history, with fish farms, waterwheels, sand dunes, and fishing boats becoming indispensable in Yilan’s landscape. People have been visiting the East Coast in the post-pandemic period, bringing opportunities for local businesses to adapt and transform. While retaining long history and heritage, a smart and lively aquatic village can be created by introducing new technologies and reinventing local concepts.
Local issues: Frequent aquatic diseases, aquaculture in decline, abandoned fish farms
- Introduce new equipment, set up smart farming demonstration areas, cultivate smart farming talents
Aquaculture farms occupied nearly thousands of hectares across Yilan 20 years ago, Taiwan was then known as the Shrimp Farming Kingdom. In recent years, issues like frequent aquatic diseases, high maintenance costs, and difficulty in finding sales channels for small-scale products have led to hardships, youths moving away, an aging population, and more than 60% of fish farms being abandoned.
We asked a local grouper farmer why he continued doing this line of work. His answer was simple: “Taste it and you’ll understand!” We knew then that there’s people passionate and confident about the industry. By going to each other’s fish farms, restaurants, workspaces, and the homes of youth who returned home, they eventually came up with the brand “Yilan Grouper” to highlight Yilan’s aquaculture industry through groupers and bring people in different areas of expertise together.
Help comes to those who do things right, we’ve applied the same passion to introduce smart farming technologies that combine water quality monitoring with local experience. Potential risks caused by environmental changes are reduced by uploading data obtained from IoB technologies to the cloud to raise issues and provide real time contingency measures via big data analysis. This is easier for the youth to adopt than the traditional method of “looking at the color of the water”. We hope to set up demonstration areas to encourage the local industry to follow. Ultimately aiming to increase the production of aquatic products in Yilan and encourage young farmers to move home, NTOU is committed to cultivating talents to keep the industry alive.
Local issues: Dwindled marine resources, youths moving away, lack of integration of sites and tourism
- Introduce sustainable fisheries and marine education, collaboration between the university and local youth and elderly
We visited the Buhou community for the first time this summer and came across an elderly man working in a watermelon field, he turned out to be Huang Ming-hai, chief of the community. Due to poor coastal fisheries resources, he wanted to free fishermen from having to work in the lowest echelons of the industry and develop experiential fishing with “Taiwanese Beach Seine,” a traditional fishing method, hoping to revitalize the community by combining tourism with “production, living, and ecology.”
This is easier in theory than practice given that the community has a severe issue of youths moving away and an aging population; “I’m the youth here but I’m almost 70. Our beach seine leader is already 80,” the chief joked. We realized how important the influx of college youth is to local communities.
We then participated in community activities and kept a resource inventory, noticing large farmlands, clean sand dunes, and unique art from driftwood and braided fishing nets, but much of it was wasted due to the lack of a comprehensive tourism plan. We know from surveys and interviews that visitors want the tour to be more dynamic.
Therefore, we propose 3 plans to the community: 1. Strengthen tours to increase trust and sales of local products; 2. “Enhance cultural value” by filming workers and their stories along with incorporating NTOU’s expertise to describe what was caught and let visitors learn by measuring the fishes; and 3. “Collaboration between the youth and the elderly,” for which a specialized course is planned for workers to pass down the craftsmanship and for students and professors to invigorate the community and cultivate local managers. The community can develop sustainably by creating a fishing village where students and the elderly can share and co-create.
Local issues: Frequent aquatic diseases, aquaculture in decline, abandoned fish farms
- Introduce new equipment, set up smart farming demonstration areas, cultivate smart farming talents
Aquaculture farms occupied nearly thousands of hectares across Yilan 20 years ago, Taiwan was then known as the Shrimp Farming Kingdom. In recent years, issues like frequent aquatic diseases, high maintenance costs, and difficulty in finding sales channels for small-scale products have led to hardships, youths moving away, an aging population, and more than 60% of fish farms being abandoned.
We asked a local grouper farmer why he continued doing this line of work. His answer was simple: “Taste it and you’ll understand!” We knew then that there’s people passionate and confident about the industry. By going to each other’s fish farms, restaurants, workspaces, and the homes of youth who returned home, they eventually came up with the brand “Yilan Grouper” to highlight Yilan’s aquaculture industry through groupers and bring people in different areas of expertise together.
Help comes to those who do things right, we’ve applied the same passion to introduce smart farming technologies that combine water quality monitoring with local experience. Potential risks caused by environmental changes are reduced by uploading data obtained from IoB technologies to the cloud to raise issues and provide real time contingency measures via big data analysis. This is easier for the youth to adopt than the traditional method of “looking at the color of the water”. We hope to set up demonstration areas to encourage the local industry to follow. Ultimately aiming to increase the production of aquatic products in Yilan and encourage young farmers to move home, NTOU is committed to cultivating talents to keep the industry alive.
Local issues: Dwindled marine resources, youths moving away, lack of integration of sites and tourism
- Introduce sustainable fisheries and marine education, collaboration between the university and local youth and elderly
We visited the Buhou community for the first time this summer and came across an elderly man working in a watermelon field, he turned out to be Huang Ming-hai, chief of the community. Due to poor coastal fisheries resources, he wanted to free fishermen from having to work in the lowest echelons of the industry and develop experiential fishing with “Taiwanese Beach Seine,” a traditional fishing method, hoping to revitalize the community by combining tourism with “production, living, and ecology.”
This is easier in theory than practice given that the community has a severe issue of youths moving away and an aging population; “I’m the youth here but I’m almost 70. Our beach seine leader is already 80,” the chief joked. We realized how important the influx of college youth is to local communities.
We then participated in community activities and kept a resource inventory, noticing large farmlands, clean sand dunes, and unique art from driftwood and braided fishing nets, but much of it was wasted due to the lack of a comprehensive tourism plan. We know from surveys and interviews that visitors want the tour to be more dynamic.
Therefore, we propose 3 plans to the community: 1. Strengthen tours to increase trust and sales of local products; 2. “Enhance cultural value” by filming workers and their stories along with incorporating NTOU’s expertise to describe what was caught and let visitors learn by measuring the fishes; and 3. “Collaboration between the youth and the elderly,” for which a specialized course is planned for workers to pass down the craftsmanship and for students and professors to invigorate the community and cultivate local managers. The community can develop sustainably by creating a fishing village where students and the elderly can share and co-create.
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University characteristic Startup Stage Project
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Keelung City
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National Taiwan Ocean University
923votes
Further reading
Measures for Leaving a Message to Enter the Draw for the Live Streaming of the Opening Ceremony
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Event Period
From 13:00 to 14:00 on December 12 (Saturday), 2020
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Event Measures
Log in to your personal Facebook or Google account to proceed with leaving a message; each account with a successful message of #2020usrexpo left before the end of the live streaming of the opening ceremony will have an opportunity to enter the draw, and each account is restricted to winning the prize once only.
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List of Winners
On December 14 (Monday), 2020, the list of winners will be announced on the event official website https://2020usrexpo.org/) Announcement of the list of winners
Event Prize Content
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1st Prize
“Huei Yeh” Power Extreme Massage Gun 1 winner
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2nd Prize
Nestle Dolce Gusto Genio 2 1 winner
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3rd Prize
KINYO Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Speaker 2 winner
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4th Prize
7-11 Gift Voucher valued at NT$200 27 winner
Announcement of the list of winners
The various prizes are expected to be notified via email and also announced on the event official website on December 14 (Monday), please will the prize winners pay attention to the prize-winning information, and send back the relevant documents according to the notices & explanations; no separate notification will be issued.
Notices
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