中山休閒農業區

※ 写真提供 中山休閒農業区発展協会

History 

The community of Jhongshan is located on the upper part of Dongshan River; Sinliao and Jiouliao streams, two of the five major brooks, are running through it. In the rainy season, the flood always crashed the sand-blocked dams. Whenever the flood came, schools located in the highest locations become refuges. Junior high school students who lived in Jhongshan, Dajin and Kelin, can go home early in the rainy seasons. In the sixties of the Republic of China, the government built dykes, renovated the mountains and rivers to end the nightmares of rainy seasons. When we see today’s Jhongshan, it’s very difficult to imagine that the residents were always in great terror when the flood came. In the 56th year of the Republic of China, a record was created in Taiwan, for 1,600 millimeters of rainfall in three days.

Industry development

In Japanese occupation period, the main farming cultivations are cassava, sugarcane and refine camphor; between twentieth and thirtieth of the Republic of China period, people planted sweet potatoes for living; during fortieth and fiftieth, it changed to paddy rice, which was irrigated from Sin Liao Fall. Some tea making masters immigrated from Pinglin, introduced the tea to Jhongshan. Because the harvest of the rice was not successful, residents gradually changed to tea planting; tea districts extended at this time.

Leisure agriculture is getting more and more popular in recent years. Also, in order to promote the tea quality, farmers only produce tea in spring and winter seasons. The rest of the time is used to hold the activities for people to experience making tea and tea drinking....etc. The community of Jhongshan combines community resources, trains narrators, puts out various types of set tours, and cooperates with schools for outdoor teaching, thus making it a high-quality community.

Graze cattle

In old days, Sinliao and Jiouliao streams often caused the disaster of flooding by a heavy raining. After renovating for many years, the disaster would not happen again. However the herbage on the streambed grew fast, often hindering water flowing smoothly. So residents were considering a solution that was not to harm the ecology, and finally found out an idea “graze cattle”. The method had three advantages, money saving, viewing, and ecology. JhongShan agricultural leisure area used the method to protect environment and ecology. Batches of visitors, students, under residents’ guidance, found out the growth of the Taiwanese buffalo and natural recreation places. More importantly, flowers and plants of streambed became more, fireflies had appeared, and egrets had come. Children with grown-ups had come also. The nature and human beings' real coexistence represented "soul of leisure agriculture".