Leopard cat-safe measures linked to honey boost
By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter
Leopard cat-friendly farming methods helped boost honey production by 10 percent over the past four years, a Miaoli County-based beekeeper said at an A-Hu Go (阿虎加油) brand event in Taipei yesterday.
The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s Hsinchu branch yesterday launched the brand with a sales exhibition at the city’s Hope Plaza, which runs through today.
The brand was developed using the leopard cat-friendly farming label, which aims to raise the market visibility of products that support leopard cat conservation, it said.
Products with leopard cat-friendly farming labels are pictured at an event hosted in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Screen grab from the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s Web site
A-Hu Go products are packaged in paper boxes bearing a drawing of a leopard cat, it said, adding that the packaging can be tailored to the needs of products.
Chiang Kun-hsien (江坤憲), who runs the Chun Tsai Apiary in Miaoli’s Yuanli Township (苑裡) along with his sisters, said their bee yard’s annual honey production has risen at least 10 percent since they began applying leopard cat-friendly farming methods more than three years ago.
His sister, Chiang Chia-ching (江佳靜), said they struggled with mysterious bee deaths at the apiary until they attended a leopard cat-friendly farming workshop organized by the branch, at which they learned that pesticides can kill the insects.
“One of our customers was a leopard cat-friendly farming advocate and invited us to the workshop,” she said. “We used to mow to near ground level and use herbicides if the grass was too high, but the course taught us to keep it at 30cm or less for leopard cat conservation, and to conserve soil and water.”
Chiang Kun-hsien said maintaining the grass also helps nurture the bees.
“Our bees feed on the grass and wild flowers growing in the bee yard. They are rarely attracted to nearby pesticide-treated farmlands,” he said.
All agricultural products with a leopard cat-friendly farming label can apply to use the A-Hu Go brand, the branch said, adding that 16 agricultural products from Miaoli have been approved.
Guidelines for leopard cat-friendly farming requires adoption of grass cover cultivation, and not using herbicides, synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and any supplies that might harm leopard cats or the environment, it said.
The guidelines also require operations to refrain from letting cats and dogs roam, or the feeding of strays near their fields, it added.
Miaoli County Agriculture Department Deputy Director Tsai Cheng-hsin (蔡政新) said that the county boasts the largest leopard cat population, as up to 88 percent of the region is slopeland.
Slopeland — defined by the Slopeland Conservation and Utilization Act (山坡地保育條例) as land with an elevation of more than 100m or a slope of at least 5 percent — provides lowland-hill habitats that leopard cats prefer, Tsai said.
The department aims to increase the county’s total leopard cat-friendly farming area to more than 2,400 hectares, he said.
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