Taiwan Church News
3870 Edition
April 27 ~ May 3, 2026
Weekly Topical
Tayal Bamboo-Fragrance-Coffee as Agronomics Model for Indigenous Communities
Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong
The Argonomics Development Center of Tayal Presbytery held a “Tayal Bamboo-Fragrance-Coffee Roasting Workshop” in Fu-hsing District, Taoyuan City on April 25. Elder Lesa Ciru, director of Argronomics Development Center, said that this workshop aims to combine rich resources of bamboo forests in Tayal indigenous reserve with the emerging coffee industry. Through the setup of the creative “journey of tribal experience”, the workshop encourages Tayal people to establish an agronomics industry with indigenous cultural characteristics in order to attract young people to come back and build up a vibrant Tayal hometown.
“The Tayal indigenous reserve, renown for its rich bamboo forests, is mostly scattered among central and northern Taiwan. Remarkably, the Makino bamboo is widely planted in Fu-hsing District and the quality of its bamboo shoots is superb. However, it’s a pity that the harvest season of Makino bamboo shoots is quite short, and because its improper storage in the past which limited the development of the Makino bamboo industry,” said Elder Lesa Ciru, “I hope that this workshop will bring relevant agronomics experiences to Tayal people and become an opportunity for the future development of Tayal communities.”
Elder Lesa Ciru further pointed out that the so-called “Luo-Ma Highway” (City Road No. 118, formerly known as 118 Taoyuan County Road), which connected the indigenous communities from Luo-Fu Village, Fu-hsing District, Taoyuan City, to Mawudu Village, Kansai Town, Hsinchu County, had effectively promoted the agronomics trend of coffee cultivation. “As many indigenous communities have invested in the coffee industry, thus emerged the creative idea combining ‘bamboo’ with ‘coffee’ to launch a explorative journey to learn both Tayal cultures and its agronomics model,” said he, “the Bamboo-Fragrance-Coffee therefore witnesses the integration of two indigenous elements: bamboo forests and coffee industry.”
The Roasting Workshop courses include bamboo shoots collection, education and contest of bamboo shoots peel-off, bamboo tableware making, creative bamboo shoots cuisine, tribal community guide, coffee beans roasting, manual coffee-brewing, and etc. Elder Lesa Ciru indicated “the workshop course stresses the complete process of coffee-industry as ‘from production to experience’, allowing tourists to peel off bamboo shoots, make bamboo tableware, roast coffee beans, and then transform it into a sustainable tribal agronomics model. We are not only selling the Bamboo-Fragrance-Coffee, but also showing a special experience of Tayal culture.”
Talking about the problems faced by the tribal coffee industry, Elder Lesa Ciru said “the biggest challenges at present are about distribution channel and sales marketing. Many farmers who grow coffee are the elderly, who are inexperienced in digital marketing. In addition, because of the severe shortage of young labor force in the tribes, the indigenous agronomics has to confront its existential crisis. Therefore, more advanced workshop courses will be planned in the second half of this year to help tribes establish on-line distribution-channel and brand-marketing in order to attract more young men to come back home and strive for a vibrant Tayal future together.”
Taking his own farming experiences at Hsi-Kou tribe as an example to explain the relationship between Christian faith and agronomics industry, Elder Lesa Ciru pointed out “the church indeeds to play a key role in tribal development, as it is not only the center of the faith, but also a critical platform to build Tayal identity and community consensus.”
Finally, Elder Lesa Ciru stressed “tribal agronomics development needs to be done ‘with a heart of loving God, the land and tribal community’, in a spirit of merging Tayal traditional culture (Gaga) with Christian faith, so that Tayal youth can find their cultural identities through the mission, and then come back to the tribes to both develop agronomics industry and proclaim the mission for the indigenous peoples.”
Translated by Peter Wolfe
