Page 62 - 2018 Annual Report Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

Collective Innovation Sustainable Management Unit 2: Building Agricultural Models Former COA Minister Lin Tsung-hsien and heads of subordinate agencies in a group photo for the opening of the “Agricultural Technology Pavilion” at the “2018 BioTaiwan” exhibition. like reducing manpower, lowering costs, and increasing efficiency. The application of semi-automatic plant irrigation machines in the orchid industry raised application efficiency by 33-50%. The introduction of drip irrigation systems for export-oriented crops increased the application efficiency of fertilizer by 50% while saving over 50% in terms of water use. Meanwhile, the poultry industry has decreased labor costs by 20%, upgraded operational efficiency by 25%, and raised management efficiency by 20% through the construction of a smart monitoring and management system using Internet for poultry housing. In 2018 the COA introduced smart core technologies at 25 Demonstration Sites for innovative operating models in agriculture. To cope with the aging of the rural population and the shortage of rural labor, the COA has been pro-actively researching and developing smart labor-saving machines. For example, some fields have used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to do experimental spraying of pesticide on ten different crops. The use of UAV pesticide spraying on dragon fruit raised efciency of the task by four times, while achieving the same level of protection. Meanwhile, the COA’s Kaohsiung Agricultural Research and Extension Station installed GPS devices and video monitoring systems on edamame harvesters, reducing the time required from harvesting in the fields to processing in a factory from seven hours to four hours, improving the freshness and quality of edamame (aka green soybean). In order to strengthen the effective diffusion of technology and to increase the participation of businesses in incentive programs to encourage the transformation of agricultural industries, the COA promoted the “Smart Farmers Union” to encourage businesses to commit themselves to Smart 60