2013 CHINESE TAIPEI (TAIWAN)
Converting pests as allies in tea farming - a potential case of Satoyama landscape in Hualien, Taiwan
Society for Wildlife and Nature (SWAN) International
Research activities
Landscape
Overview
Conventional tea farming in Taiwan requires the application of herbicides and pesticides to control pests, which cause serious negative impacts on the surrounding biodiversity. In Hualien County of eastern Chinese Taipei, however, at least two tea farming families completely stopped the use of pesticides and are using tea pests as their allies to produce a value-added tea product. Tea leaves damaged by green leafhopper, a species formerly considered as a pest, gave the tea a unique honey flavour which was highly appreciated by consumers. SWAN International investigated whether these tea plantations have higher biodiversity than that of conventional tea plantations, and whether the new eco-friendly farming approach benefits local communities.
Key achievements
- Biological survey revealed that eco-friendly farms that restricted the use of agrochemicals maintain significantly higher biological richness than conventional farms.
- Socio-economic survey demonstrated that eco-friendly tea farming generated a higher economic return, where loss in quantity was compensated by high unit price of tea leaves. Eco-friendly farms also created more job opportunities especially for local women for elaborated farm management.
- A combination of biological and socio-economic surveys clarified a cascade effect of the green leafhopper population on tea leaf production –the higher the population of green leafhopper is, the less quantity of harvest but higher quality and unit prices of tea leaves.
Lessons
- The new eco-friendly tea farming technique, which supports a higher level of biodiversity and brings added economic benefits to the farmers, can serve as a model practice to realise socially and ecologically sustainable production landscape in Taiwan.
- A socio-ecological production system should be verified by scientific data to demonstrate that it is truly biodiversity friendly.
- Innovation is one of the most important keys to the sustainability of SEPLS.
Project location
Organisation

Society for Wildlife and Nature (SWAN) International
- Sector
- Non-governmental organisation
- Country
- Chinese Taipei (Taiwan)
- Website/SNS
- http://www.swan.org.tw/eng/