Puli Town, Nantou County
4 min readThe town of puli is located in the geographical center of taiwan in the northern part of Nantou County, 61 kilometers southeast of Taichung and 17 kilometers north of Sun Moon Lake. There is not only beautiful natural scenery, but also unique recreational agriculture.
In order to help farmers overcome the challenges presented by the rules imposed on agriculture by the Wto, the Puli Agricultural Association set up the tourist Service Centerand developed the policy of setting up a leisure agricultural plot for each village to take advantage of the unique mountain water and closely integrate the natural scenery with agriculture. On the one hand, the policy will provide tourists with a comprehensive highquality agricultural tour and on the other assist farmers in developing high-quality and interesting leisure agriculture and boosting sales of local produce and processed agricultural products. Leisure agriculture represents a change from traditional agricultural production by strengthening utilization of agricultural land and natural resources to develop a new service industry that makes use of agricultural land to combine agriculture and touris agriculture and education, and agriculture and recreation. The development of leisure agriculture has increased the efficiency of the means of production, increased employment opportunities and boosted the local economy It is a new measure in the form of a leisure service industry that helps farmers improve their operations .
The Puli Agricultural Association also introduced the activity to set up a combination agricultural and fishing park for each village. In addition to putting on traditionalsinging performances, exhibitions, ecological forest tourism, and nature conservation activities, the association also set up a special bus service to take tourists from one site in the park to another so the tourists can conveniently see the entire park and allow individual tourists to visit and enjoy sites operated jointly by local residents and buy local produce. In addition, the Puli Agricultural association is strongly promoting the formation of an alliance with the tienshulien Hotel, Puli distillery and the taiyi Ecological, Educational and Leisure Agricultural Park in a powerful effort to develop the leisure and education functions of traditional agriculture.
The leisure agriculture of Puli has improved the competitiveness of the local agriculture and created a green miracle in the Taiwan region. Encouraging farmers to makeuse of the special local agricultural scenery and rural culture, and allowing tourists totruly appreciate rural life has not only changed the traditional structure of agriculture but also boosted local economic development and growth and greatly helped overall social development. Leisure agriculture has increased the sources of income for local farmers and made corresponding improvements in their standard of living.
Entrance to the zones flower conservator a prime example of Puli leisure agriculture is the Taiyi Ecological，educational and Leisure Agricultural Park.The 10-hectare park is located in the Puli Basin in Nantou County，with its clear mountain water and mild climate.The park makes use of Puli s ample agricultural resources and human environment to carry out its main purpose of supplyinglocal farmers with seedlings for growing fruits and vegetables as well as its secondary activity of developing agricultural tourism and resources for expanding application of science and technology in agriculture.Entering the park today you can see plots of seedlings and flowers in a wide variety of colors，offering a spectacular sight.Inside the park there is a pressed flower center，which displays beautiful pressed flower articles as ll as provides an opportunity for visitors to make their own pressed flowers.The education section of the park helps visitors understand the growth process of plants and provides them with the opportunity to work on a vegetable plot themselves and better appreciate a farmer s life.Efforts are made to ensure that the ecological environment is kept as pristine as possible and all development projects are required to disturb the ecology of the area as little as possible.Mainly local crops are grown in line with the decision for the park to concentrate on green cultivation.growing a wide variety of local crops is not only a special feature of the park，it also constitutes a smorgasbord of localcrops.Also on display in the park are agricultural tools and equipment such as water carts and windmills to help visitors appreciate rural life and culture.
The rich variety of plants and moving scenes of life on the farm provide visitors with an unforgettable ecological education experience.The park also gives visitors the chance to experience a totally restful stay in one of the park s lodgings-the Fairy tale Wooden Cabins，which are sloped-roof buildings with exquisite rooms.The Fairy tale Wooden Cabins are also known as the earthquake Memorial cabins.After the september 21，1999 earthquakethe likes of which only occur once in a century，the people were afraid to sleep in their homes whether they were severely injured or not.Puli was covered with tents then，andthese 12 wooden cabins were built later in the shape of tents to commemorate that time.
