Page 5 - 2018 Annual Report Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

account the current situation in domestic organic agriculture, future development needs, and the opinions of all stakeholders in society, promulgated the “Organic Agriculture Promotion Act.” The COA provided subsidies for organic and eco- friendly cultivation, for organic certification fees, for eco-friendly fertilizer materials, and for farm machinery and facilities. As of the end of 2018, there were 11,569 hectares of land under organic or eco- friendly cultivation, an increase of 42.9% as compared to 2017. Also, in order to expand marketing channels, the COA guided sales outlets to set up special counters devoted to organic products, organized organic farmers' markets, and set up electronic emporiums while guiding organic farmers to establish online direct-sales stores. Constructing four major farmers' welfare systems to ensure the well-being of farmers In order to (i) ensure that farmers' livelihoods are not endangered by weather events, (ii) reduce the operational risks of farming, and (iii) ensure farmers' incomes, the COA has been promoting an agricultural insurance system on a trial basis. As of the end of 2018, there was already trial insurance for 11 items, including pears, mangoes, sugar apples, paddy rice, aquacultural seafood, grouper, poultry (for avian influenza), agricultural facilities, papayas, wax apples, and milkfish. The total insured amount was NT$3.38 billion. In the future we will expand the coverage of agricultural insurance, increase the number of insurable items, and promote the passage of a law governing agricultural insurance, to protect the incomes of farmers. The COA also refined farmers' health insurance. With respect to actual cultivators of the land who use the farmland of others but only have an oral agreement to do so rather than a written contract, we discussed relevant mechanisms and adopted “decoupling of people and land,” and we guided actual cultivators to apply to participate in farmers' health insurance. In addition, the COA expanded the occupational safety net for farmers and made the farmers' social insurance system more complete. Beginning November 1, 2018, we offered occupational injury insurance for farmers, and as of the end of December already 90,407 farmers had taken out policies. Moreover, in order to upgrade the quality of life of retired farmers, the COA is currently planning to integrate (i) farmers' health insurance, (ii) the welfare allowance for elderly farmers, and (iii) other forms of social insurance, and, using the welfare allowance for elderly farmers as the foundation, is evaluating the construction of a farmers' pension system, in order to create a comprehensive farmers' welfare system. Promoting the use of domestically produced traceable foods in school lunches and traceable non-staple foods in the military In order to implement the “Five Links of Food Safety” and ensure that students have safe food to eat while putting parents' minds at ease, in 2018 the COA began nationwide promotion of the use of local agriproducts that meet the requirement of the “Four Labels and One QR Code” in school lunches. The coverage rate in 2018 reached 55.3%, benefitting approximately 3,506 schools and 1.86 million students in 22 municipalities, counties, and cities. This shows that the policy of promoting the use of food from traceable sources in school lunches has been quite effective. In addition, the COA also encouraged farmers' associations to provide traceable vegetables that have Traceable Agricultural Product (TAP) certification, Gi-Am-Pu certification, and/or organic certification to the military. About 40% of the vegetables provided to the military carried one or more of these certifications. Increased consumption of such vegetables will drive production of safer agriproducts, and promote acceptance and support of domestic agriproducts.