Taiwan's Award-Winning Eco Farm Table
Tucked into the lush northeastern coastline of Taiwan, just about an hour from Taipei, Toucheng Leisure Farm is not simply a place to visit — it is a place to belong to, if only for a day. Spread across more than 120 hectares of mountain, field, and forest along Yilan County's shoreline, the farm has spent over four decades perfecting a rare philosophy: that agriculture, ecology, education, and hospitality can coexist without compromise.
Egrets drift through the paddy fields — a daily sight at Toucheng Farm, where rice cultivation and wildlife share the same unhurried rhythm.
A Certified Leader in Sustainable Tourism
In an era when "eco-friendly" has become little more than a marketing label, Toucheng Leisure Farm holds itself to a higher standard. Since 2018, the farm has operated in alignment with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) principles — the internationally recognised benchmark covering environmental stewardship, socio-cultural respect, and responsible management — making it one of Taiwan's earliest certified sustainable hospitality operations. That commitment shows up in practice: circular farming that returns organic matter to the soil, the annual planting of 3,000 trees, ingredients sourced from local farmers and fishermen, and the careful preservation of biodiversity across its gardens, forest trails, and coastal edges. The world took notice in March 2024, when Toucheng became the first Taiwanese leisure farm to receive an award at the Green Destinations Top 100 Story Awards at ITB Berlin — earning 2nd Place in the Business & Marketing category, competing alongside destinations from Mexico and the Philippines on the world's leading sustainable tourism stage.
The tree ferns are the living fossils that have been survived for more than 300 million years.
The Happy Island Canteen: A Forest Table Experience
At the heart of Toucheng Farm's hospitality vision is a dining concept unlike anything available in a hotel banquet hall or city restaurant. The Happy Island Canteen — Forest Table (幸福島嶼食堂・森林餐桌) is an immersive, farm-to-forest dining experience that takes guests out of any conventional notion of a "meal" and places them inside the story of the land itself.
A snack composed entirely from foraged fruits, plated to echo the way birds feed in the wild — where ecology becomes edible.
Guests are seated at long communal tables set beneath the canopy, surrounded by the sounds of the farm — birdsong, wind through bamboo, the faint rhythm of agricultural work nearby. The menu is composed from what the local fishing boats, and seasonal harvests have to offer that day. Each dish is designed using food storytelling principles, meaning that every element on the plate is a conversation about Yilan's terroir, the farmers who tend it, and the cultural traditions that give it meaning.
This is not casual dining. It is a curated, guided experience — part meal, part environmental education, part celebration of place.
Wild boars root through soil in search of tubers and roots. This foraging instinct quietly shapes how the farm thinks about what grows beneath the surface.
The Ideal Setting for Corporate Groups and Schools
For corporate teams, the Farm Table offers something the conference room simply cannot: genuine shared experience. Teams who eat together in a forest, who learn where food comes from, who hold soil in their hands before sitting down to the meal it produced — they leave with a different kind of understanding of both sustainability and each other. Half-day and full-day corporate programmes can be built around the dining experience, incorporating farm walks, ecological interpretation, and team activities aligned with ESG learning goals.
Local, seasonal ingredients. Guided walks, harvesting, and communal cooking — all woven into a single immersive experience that makes environmental education impossible to forget.
For school groups, Toucheng Farm has long been a trusted environmental education partner, working with local primary schools to deliver food and agriculture education through its certified Green Kitchen. The Forest Table extends that mission to visiting student groups — offering an experiential curriculum that connects biology, ecology, geography, and culture in a single afternoon outdoors.
Whether the group arrives with KPIs or with curiosity, the Farm leaves everyone with the same thing: a clearer sense of what it means to be genuinely connected to an island.
Spent mushroom substrate — once used, never wasted. At Toucheng Farm, spent grow bags are composted back into the soil, closing the loop between cultivation and care.
Toucheng Leisure Farm
Add: No. 125-1, Gengxin Road, Toucheng Township, Yilan County, Taiwan.
Contact: For group enquiries: +886-3-977-2222 or tcfarminfo@gmail.com
Written & Photography by: The T Scout©
