In implementing food and agriculture education, the Taitung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (TTDARES) of the Ministry of Agriculture held a class on millet with Kao Shih-chung, who was named one of the 2nd Top 100 Young Farmers, as the speaker on October 16 (Monday), 2023, at Haiduan Township’s Wulu Elementary School and its branch school in Lidao (Taitung’s school with the highest elevation: 1,068 meters). The class gave teachers and students (23 in total) a closer look at the agricultural industry and, in particular, taught them about cultivating millet and the grain’s connection to the locality.

Haiduan is home to the Bunun people, for whom the new year traditionally begins in November with a ceremony for preparing the land to plant millet, making apparent the grain’s importance to their culture. The way millet is used and its symbolic meaning in Indigenous culture were discussed. Kao Shih-chung, a Paiwan farmer from Jinfeng Township, engaged in an exchange about millet with the students and teachers. Through the use of props, students were introduced to different varieties and their uses and shown how to keep birds away. As for the hands-on aspect, they were taught how to plant millet in an empty plot of land on the campus at Wulu and in pots at the Lidao campus. By integrating instruction on Indigenous people’s millet culture, the class also served as a means of transmitting cultural heritage and was highly affirmed by the participants.