New Southbound Policy Portal

President Tsai Ing-wen said June 11 that public and private sector efforts promoting the New Agriculture program are bearing fruit and helping grow overseas markets for Taiwan’s high-quality produce.
 
Lychees are one of the country’s signature crops proving popular with consumers in Japan, Tsai said while inspecting a shipment of the fruit for the Northeast Asian country at an export center in central Taiwan’s Taichung City. This is largely due to locally developed technology enabling lychees to be sold in pristine condition, she added.
 
According to Tsai, the technology is the result of collaboration between Taichung-based National Chung Hsing University and Taichung Farmers’ Association with the financial support of manufacturing heavyweight Hiwin Technologies Corp.
 
This development is in line with one of the program’s main objectives of employing innovation and technology in adding value to local produce and securing the income and welfare of agricultural workers, she said.
 
Other concrete measures under the program include expanded insurance coverage for farmers and agricultural produce, establishment of a company marketing Taiwan’s produce abroad and implementation of an initiative providing direct payments and price guarantees for top-tier rice, according to Tsai.
 
Launched in 2017, the four-year program aims to strengthen the foundations of Taiwan’s agricultural sector and transform it into a globally competitive player. Other goals include increasing the country’s food self-sufficiency to 40 percent, creating NT$43.4 billion (US$1.45 billion) in added-value production and generating 370,000 new jobs.
 
The program is a key component in the government’s five-plus-two innovative industries initiative, which targets the five high-growth sectors of biotech and pharmaceuticals, green energy, national defense, smart machinery and Internet of Things, as well as the promotion of the circular economy. (SFC-E)

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