The interactions of the Local Community and Local Farmers’ Association：A Case study of the construction of the Organic Village, Luoshan Community.

• Main Authors: Jin Pei Ru, 金佩茹
• Other Authors: Yan Chung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/00142469351417056691

碩士 === 國立花蓮教育大學 === 鄉土文化學系碩士班 === 96 === The Luoshan community in Fulin Township, Hualian is the first "organic village" in Taiwan. The involvement of the community organizations, farmers’ association, and individuals has made the organic village as the center of community life. How the two parties interact with each other by sharing a number of fundamental principles: attraction, dependence, power, trust, promise , and communication, is the focal analytical point of this paper. We call it the “exchange behavior.” The ultimate goal of the study is to understand the impact of the farmers’ association and communities and the value of the organic village. The development of partnerships with the community organizations involved a long process and its impact on the Loushan community is tremendous. It took a long time for the farmers’ association to integrate with the community and it certainly demonstrates the many ways that the farmers’ association contributes to the community. The study is based on qualitative research through interviewing local people, conducting fieldwork and referencing creditable resources from the literatures. The study shows that the partnerships are based on a system of cooperation for mutual advantage. The community organizations have worked hard to show that they are giving back to the farmers’ organization in exchange for the support and use of facilities. As time goes by, the community organizations rely more and more on the farmers’ association and it shows the shortcomings of the community organizations. It results in the power imbalance between the two parties: the farmers’ association has far more power than the community organizations. The success of the partnerships is mainly built upon trust and continuous two-way, open communication. From our case study, we learned how the local farmers overcame all the obstacles, such as dealing with pests with a great variety of methods, importing organic composted soils from other countries, changing the way of farming, and building the irrigation systems, in order to create an organic village. Through this process, the community organizations affect the way the farmers’ association thinks. Via this transformation, the society has a brand new value.