Fenyuan Township Office is all stations go, as officials count the stink bug eggs on these lychee leaves. These are the fruits of farmers’ war against the pest.
They’re laid out on numbered grids for counting. Each sheet contains 100 grids, and each grid is worth NT$5. Fill up 100 grids with leaves full of stink bug eggs, and you’ll earn NT$500. This year Changhua County set aside NT$660,000 to buy stink bug eggs collected by the public. The deadline was initially May 25. But after an enormous response, the callout has been cut short before the two-month mark. There are already 439,000 leaves to be counted, triple last year’s haul.
Lin Cheng-ta, Fenyuan Township Office official: We decided to stop it on March 22, and we posted that online. So everyone who could get any hurried to do so. One leaf is NT$5, so it’s the easiest money in the world.
The abrupt end to the project led people to rush to hand in all the leaves they could get their hands on. One Mrs. Chang is an expert picker. She found 40,000 leaves in one month, earning her the top remuneration of any leaf collector: NT$200,000.
Kuo Chih-shan, Changhua Agriculture Department: Of all the residents of Fenyuan, she collected over 41,500 leaves, which earned her about NT$200,000. In second place was a resident of TianzhongTownship, who collected 33,000 leaves and earned NT$150,000.
On the last day of the callout, Changhua accepted 170,000 leaves – making a new daily record. The pandemic has hit manual labor, and many who rely on factory shifts are looking for extra work. Maybe leaf-collecting could be a new avenue for a side income.
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