The sixth National Agricultural Conference will be held in September, with 18 grassroots meetings taking place first, and agricultural labor shortage as a key agenda item
Following the Council of Agriculture's 2003 "Fifth National Agricultural Conference," which focused on "measures in response to WTO accession," COA Minister Lin Tsung-hsien today (the 24th) again made a major announcement, stating that the "Sixth National Agricultural Conference" will be launched on September 7 and 8. As for what the focus will be? In addition to looking at international trade response measures for the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), Lin again emphasized that "agricultural labor shortage" will absolutely become one of the key points, and whether it is young people returning to their hometowns, agricultural mechanization, or opening up agricultural foreign labor, "everyone's opinions need to be consolidated."
18 "Local Grassroots Meetings" Converge into the "National Agricultural Conference"
Lin Tsung-hsien said, "(The COA's) organizational restructuring, besides becoming the Ministry of Agriculture, also shows in its organizational structure the future vision of agricultural administration agencies for agriculture." In the past, national agricultural conferences were mostly focus forums, inviting industry groups, farmer groups, farmer representatives, and representatives from industry, government, and academia to participate. However, in order to conform to the trend of the era of civic participation, before the national agricultural conference is held in September, the COA has planned 18 "local grassroots meetings," and will incorporate "online virtual participation" into the local grassroots meetings, encouraging citizens to participate in public affairs from the bottom up through the internet; as long as an online citizen proposal reaches 2,000 endorsements, that proposal will be discussed at the national conference.
When asked whether the list of attendees for the September "Sixth National Agricultural Conference" had been finalized, Chou Miao-fang, deputy director of the COA's Department of Planning, only said that because there is still some time before the national agricultural conference is held, the definite list of representatives from industry, government, academia, and civic groups has not yet been completed. As for the first grassroots meeting, it will be held on April 30 in Hualien.
