Page 98 - 2019 Annual Report Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

Learning from Nature: Harmony and well-being Unit 5: Major Events in 2019
The "Forum on Export Platform for Taiwan Guavas" (November 6, 2019).
96
C. Amendments of laws and regulations to strengthen disease-prevention measures
The "Statute for Prevention and Control of Infectious Animal Diseases” (hereafter "the Statute") was amended on December 28, 2018 to add Paragraph 10 to Article 34 stating that "Quarantine objects must not be sent by post; otherwise, they will be returned, forfeited or destroyed." The amendment went into effect on January 6, 2019 to reduce the risk of animal disease spreading through the mailing of animal products. The President promulgated further amendments to the Statute on December 13, 2019 to prevent cross-border e-commerce from becoming a transmission channel for infectious animal disease into Taiwan. Based on the newly added Article 38-3 of the Statute, Internet platform operators and telecommunications enterprises must adopt necessary measures based on the "Regulations Governing the Content on the Internet Involving the Sale or Importation of Overseas Objects Which Shall Be Subject to Animal Quarantine." Internet operators violating the aforesaid regulations shall be fined between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000 under the Statute, and will be notified to improve within a fixed time period; those who do not improve within the time period can be fined for each violation separately.
(2) Refining measures for adjusting (balancing) production and sales of agriproducts
The COA, using export, marketing, and processing measures, devised a number of new policies in 2019 to guide rural industries and develop sales channels:
A. Cultivation registration system
The COA established a cultivation registration system for cabbage to allow farmers
and consumers to understand the current cultivation situation and enable the government to implement adjustments to production and sales volume. The government can then do priority guidance of export, processing, and marketing of cabbage meeting the quality standards of processing plants and exporting farmers’ organizations, and also undertake diversified circular handling measures to ensure farmers’ incomes. Further, in order to stay abreast of the cabbage harvest situation in advance, the COA compared the numbers from an early warning system for number of cabbage seedlings, surveys of the agricultural situation, and remote sensing to provide early warnings to farmers for reference before planting.
B. Agriproduct export platforms
To break into and develop overseas markets for agriproducts and ensure farmers’ incomes, starting in 2019 the COA began planning the construction of agriproduct export platforms. They will include small farmers and special production zones at the supply end and foreign buyers from importers, hypermarkets, and supermarkets at the sales end. They will bring together local governments, overseas representative offices, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, and agencies of the COA (including the Competent Authorities for various rural industries, District Agricultural Research and Extension Stations, the Department of International Affairs, and the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine), who will provide essential assistance at various stages of the export process. In addition, we have newly added the registration of export businesses and agriproduct supplier farmers to the "export crop production and supply chain system" for the purposes of matching producers with sellers.