Third Class of Pingtung County Agricultural University Graduates, Building a New Force for Pingtung Agriculture

The 3rd Agricultural University opened by the Pingtung County Government to encourage young people to take up farming held its graduation ceremony on the 30th, with County Magistrate Pan Meng-an personally presenting graduation certificates to 178 trainees who met the graduation requirements. County Magistrate Pan Meng-an encouraged the graduating young farmers, the new force, to apply what they have learned in the future, devote themselves to agricultural production, create a new economy for young farmers, and become the seeds of Pingtung's new agricultural movement.

To promote local agriculture, the Pingtung County Government and National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) jointly promoted the Agricultural University; now in its 3rd class, the Agricultural University received 538 applications and admitted 188 students. After 120 hours of complete training courses, 178 graduated.

County Magistrate Pan Meng-an said that the Agricultural University has been running for 3 years, and he thanked the College of Agriculture of NPUST and the Agricultural Improvement Station for providing relevant knowledge, including field management, online sales, packaging, and even cross-industry results sharing and alliances, changing and improving agricultural management and business methods and cultivating more outstanding agricultural talent.

The trainees in this class come from diverse backgrounds. Besides some being children of farming families, there were also newcomers entering agriculture for the first time, indigenous people and new residents. The agricultural products they cultivate are numerous and varied: all kinds of vegetables and fruits, mushrooms, fishery products, forage grass, coarse grains, spices, and more. Some cultivate only a small area, but all the trainees hold a passion for agriculture, tending their crops carefully and applying what they learned at the Agricultural University.