Page 7 - 2018 Annual Report Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

number of measures including increasing the manpower supply, reducing demand for human labor, and constructing manpower dispatching and commissioned farming systems, in order to encourage efcient use of rural manpower. In 2018 the COA formed a total of 91 teams (including agricultural technical teams, cultivation teams, specialized industry teams, mechanized cultivation teams, and short term labor teams), for which we recruited 1,935 people. Altogether these provided a total of 270,000 man-days of labor, helping out more than 4,000 farms, and alleviating about 50% of seasonal labor shortages. The COA also implemented the “New Farmers Training Program,” with a goal of training 30,000 young farmers over a ten- year period beginning in 2017. We are integrating guidance resources for new farmers with measures related to agricultural technology, land rental, preferential loans, and marketing channels. The COA is providing a sound environment to attract people to return to rural areas to farm, and so far we have trained over 6,000 people. In order to increase value added for agriproducts, the COA has not only planned and set up modern cold-chain logistics systems and regional processing centers, as well as promoted a management system for primary processing of agriproducts, in 2018 we also completed plans to establish “Agricultural Products Value Added Prototyping Centers” at the District Agricultural Research and Extension Stations in Tainan, Kaohsiung, Taitung, and Hualien. These centers will assist farmers to use local crops to make prototypes for products, and will provide testing and processing guidance, in order to resolve the problem of processing for small farms, stabilize production and sales, and increase agricultural value added. There are still many aspects of agriculture that need to be improved. In order to adjust Taiwan's agricultural structure and lay out a development blueprint, starting in April of 2018 the COA held a series of activities leading up to the “6th National Agriculture Congress.” There was an enthusiastic response from the general public, with over 10,000 participants. The National Agriculture Congress was convened on September 7 to 8 of 2018, with over 300 representatives of industry, government, and academia present. By bringing together their collective wisdom, the Congress produced 73 conclusions, which will be transformed into concrete and feasible policies to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of agriculture. Agriculture has diversified values, including food safety, industrial development, environmental protection, and preservation of rural culture. I hope that through this Annual Report we can advance the public's understanding of and support for agriculture in Taiwan. I myself was born into a farming family in Pingtung County, and I have a strong sense of dedication to Taiwan agriculture. In the future we at the COA will continue to re-assess our policies on a rolling basis, in order to stay in close touch with the actual requirements of farmers, refine the implementation of all kinds of agricultural policies, and propose programs that can meet the felt needs of farmers. We hope that through collaboration between the public and private sectors we can seize opportunities for agriculture to advance and create a new situation for the sustainable development of agriculture. Chi-chung Chen Minister Council of Agriculture March, 2019