FFTC Agricultural Policy Platform (FFTC-AP)

Source: Council of Agriculture

http://www.coa.gov.tw/ws.php?id=2506092)

The Council of Agriculture (COA) established new paradigm for agricultural development in response to trade liberalization, climate change, consumption structural change, and fundamental shift of agricultural land and labor. On Dec. 8, 2016, the Taiwan Executive Yuan passed the proposal submitted by COA, titled “Promoting New Agriculture Innovation Act”, which aims to deliver a new paradigm, safety system, and marketing capability in the agricultural sector. This Act was passed on Dec. 8, 2016, as the part of “Five-plus-two” innovation industry project.

This Act intends to enforce the foundation of Taiwanese agriculture and increase the value of production. By implementing this Act, it is expected in 2020 that the food self-sufficiency will be increased to 40%, agricultural production value to NT$45.4 billion, total employment of 370,000 headcounts, and product exports to overseas emerging markets to 57% in 2020. The major policy follows:

1. Establish new paradigm of agriculture: secure farmers, agricultural development and environmental sustainability

1. Promote green-payment upon farmland: This payment will extend to 20 towns in the first period of 2017. Furthermore, the minimum-price guaranteed purchase in combination with green-payment upon farmland will be fully implemented at the nationwide scale starting from 2018.
2. Implement agricultural insurance: New trail of agricultural insurance will be launched for rice, mango, sugar-apple production, and agricultural facilities. In addition, the legislation of agricultural insurance law will be pushed.
3. Raise income of professional farmers and take care of old farmers’ welfare: continue the social welfare policy to take care of old farmers, enhance land bank services, provide opportunities for new entry of farmers, implement the policy of 30000 farmers in 10 years, and raise competitiveness of professional and new farmers.
4. Enhance competitiveness of livestock and poultry industry:
   Counseling pig slaughter house and temperature control of carcasses. The traditional pork sales should be promoted to the sales with temperature control in order to secure meat quality and safety. In addition, the prevention of foot-and-mouth disease and bird flu should be invested as ongoing projects. For clean energy, biogas for power house should be further promoted.
5. Extend eco-friendly farming environment: Start to subsidize organic and eco-friendly agricultural environment, and organism-base fertilizers, in order to provide incentives for enlarging eco-friendly farming initiatives. Promote organic agriculture legislation towards sustainable use of eco-friendly resources.
6. Sustainable use of agricultural resources: Through promoting agriculture and farmland survey for public post, integrate resources for resolving the problem of agri-labor shortage as well as habitat protection for sustainable fishery.
7. Push new technology forward: Emphasize R&D and applications of labor- and energy-saving automatic facilities in order to promote their operational effectiveness. Thus, a sustainable model of agricultural production is able to built upon the new energy model of reuse and recycle.

2. Strengthen food security system: stabilize food supply, raise food quality, and enhance food safety for consumer trust

1. Promote large-barn project: Encourage planting of non-GMO soybeans and corn. Promote large-scale zone for grains production via contracting collaborative model. Large-scale production will be able to reduce costs by using agent-operating system, which includes farming, drying, clearing, and packing activities for multiple items of processing and marketing at one center.
2. Raise the food sufficiency ratio: Using policy to adjust import substitution products by subsidizing local production. More incentives for local supply can be facilitated by more demand via food and farming education and school lunch meal-plan.
3. Execute principles on food security: Enhance source management, promote food tracking safety system, increase inspection frequency on high-risk agri-products, and local food certification for school lunch meal-plans.
4. Establish trustworthy certification system for consumers: Organic certification will be implemented according to the legislation of organic agriculture. Gradually, the integration of “Chi-yuan-pu”, CAS, and production tracking certification should gain more support from the domestic consumption preferences.

3. Enhance agricultural marketing capability: strengthen marketing activities, promote agriculture as sustainable and profitable industry

1. Develop multiple channels for domestic and international sales: Construct the modern logistics and trading system for agricultural products sales in the domestic and international markets, particularly for the southern emerging markets such as ASEAN and south Asian countries, and New Zealand and Australia. Taiwan Agricultural Global Marketing Co., Ltd (TAGM) will be responsible for exporting market by optimizing contracting production, production centralized collection, quality control, and international branding.
2. Enhance the agricultural value-adds: Production and sales system and contracting farming activities will assist the processing of agricultural products by using advanced facilities. The regional processing center will be established to promote a sixth-revolution opportunity.