Page 56 - 2018 Annual Report Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

Collective Innovation Sustainable Management Unit 2: Building Agricultural Models Agricultural technical teams recruit agrotechnicians to go into fruit orchards and assist in harvesting, thereby helping with the agricultural labor shortage. COA, based on a survey of the causes of the rural labor shortage, planned adjustment measures for rural labor such as “upgrading the efficiency of the use of manpower,” “introducing diversified labor,” “adjusting production-and-marketing operating procedures,” “introducing labor-saving agricultural machinery and equipment,” “promoting a platform for sharing of agricultural machinery,” and “integrating and promoting agricultural services,” in order to cope with the labor shortage. In terms of “increasing the supply of manpower,” the COA organized various types of agricultural manpower teams including agricultural technical teams, agricultural cultivation teams, industrial expert teams, mechanized cultivation teams, and open-prison teams. We also cooperated with municipal, city, and county governments to form labor activation teams. Over the course of 2018 the COA formed 91 teams and recruited 1,935 workers who worked a total of 275,760 man-days and provided farm services on 13,652 occasions. As for the short-term high- volume demand for labor, we organized “holiday farmer” teams and encouraged students to work part-time on farms. We organized “holiday farmer” teams on 43 occasions, with 2,148 people participating. We provided incentives to 270 domestic and foreign students to work part-time on farms, and they provided a total of 9,733 man-days of service. These numbers demonstrate the COA’s commitment to recruiting diversified manpower for agricultural work. In terms of “reducing the demand for manpower,” the COA formed mechanized 54