This week, ‘40 Years, 40 Stories’ brings you David Groves, field manager at Groves Grown Tropical Fruits. David visited Taiwan in 2017 as part of the Young Farmers exchange program. David’s family farm became the first in Australia to grow a number of Taiwanese lychee varieties. David shares his story:
In 2017 I was very grateful to be invited to Taiwan by the Australia Office as part of a young farmer exchange program. Another young Australian farmer and I met many wonderful people, including young Taiwanese farmers.
I was very interested in the intensive use of land by growing several crops of different heights in the same location. I found a loquat farm in a high mountain valley particularly interesting, as my family also grows loquats but using different methods. The Taiwanese loquat farm we visited individually bags each bunch of fruit to protect from birds.
My family is also extremely excited to be the first farm in Australia to grow 6 Taiwanese varieties of lychee developed by TARI (Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute). Having had a category 5 cyclone hit our farm two years before my visit I was interested to see how Taiwanese farmers protect their lychee nets against frequent typhoons.
