Mai or Mai? －The Historical Development of the Wheat Industry in Daya, Taiwan

Following the Japanese ruling period’s tradition, Daya is one of the major wheat production areas in Taiwan. So far, it’s the only township which continues planting wheat in large-scale. The evolving national food policy in Taiwan has greatly affects the improvement of the wheat varieties, the cultivation methods and technology innovation, and also the utilization of wheat industries. Farmer’s awareness of wheat production culture is also shaped through this process. To date, the tradition of wheat industry in Daya ramins heavily depending on Kinmen county government’s agricultural protection policy.
In 2004, local communities initiated “Wheat Festival” and it gradually constructed the local resident’s awareness of “Daya” as “the home of wheat”. Soon after this event, the opportunity of commercialize wheat production has been prioritize in local agenda. In addition to continuing applying wheat as major food source, various cultural creativity activities began to be introduced in either translated into the promotion or product.
Three different scales－local, national, global－act as structure constraints and affect wheat production network among the production, processors, and secondary processors. In this case study, we identified the new network built among the secondary processors can be used as local discourse to sell out the local food; however, this action is limited in terms of the structural constraints at the national level.
The wheat production in Daya is under the agricultural protection policy thus not affected by market price. After the “Wheat Festival”, here comes acculturation and then commercialization. The cultural discourses reveal that agricultural production cannot be separated from economic activity. Without economic incentives, it is hard to motivate farmers to adopt better cultivation methods. Last, the wheat production is further constrained if the production cannot be adjusted with new production network.