Taiwan's livestock industry relies on runaway foreign workers for support? Dairy farmers call for importing agricultural foreign workers, Ministry of Labor: It could change the face of rural areas

The problem of agricultural labor shortages has existed for a long time. In addition to integrating domestic labor, whether to open up the importation of foreign workers has also become an issue of public concern. Hung Chang-chin, chairman of the Republic of China Dairy Farmers Association, said that compared with other livestock industries, dairy farming is not easy to automate, making it a chronic labor shortage. "Importing foreign workers is not a panacea, but at least it opens this door, using a special-purpose plan to allow the dairy industry to import foreign workers in an appropriate way and ease the labor shortage."

Regarding the issue of agricultural labor shortages, Chiu Chuang-chin, chief executive officer of the Central Livestock Association, a foundation, said bluntly at the "Agricultural Manpower Revitalization and Promotion of Application" policy forum on the 10th, "Taiwan's labor shortages all rely on illegal foreign workers who have run away from factories for support. Every time we go to look at the New Taipei Poultry and Northern Poultry slaughterhouses, they beg us not to let the police come and raid the illegal foreign workers. As soon as the police come, the production line stops."

However, Chuang Kuo-liang, a specialist member of the Workforce Development Agency under the Ministry of Labor, also responded that the slaughtering industry has been open to foreign workers since March 2016, and the New Taipei Poultry and Northern Poultry slaughterhouses can apply for legal foreign workers. But current regulations require the hiring of a certain proportion of domestic workers before foreign workers may be hired: "Hire 100 domestic workers, and only then can you hire 25 foreign workers," in order to ensure that the employment rights and interests of domestic workers are not affected.

Variety improvement staggers production seasons to ease the labor shortage

Liang Ming-hsien, chief secretary of the Agriculture Bureau of the Kaohsiung City Government, said that Kaohsiung has four agricultural technical teams with a total of 120 workers, which can provide 31,680 person-times throughout the year to assist with crops such as Yu Her Pau lychee, pineapple, jujube, guava and wax apple.

However, in addition to supplementing labor, efforts have also been devoted to variety improvement in recent years. Liang Ming-hsien pointed out that, for example, when the Yu Her Pau lychee season arrives, more than 2,000 hectares of lychee must be harvested within ten days, which is a challenge for both harvesting manpower and market absorption. But if a new lychee variety is developed and harvesting begins earlier in April, the production period can be spread out. For wax apple, varieties such as Palm, Brown Sugar Barbie and Bullet wax apple can be planted in a staggered manner, allowing harvest from the end of the year to June or July of the following year. After lengthening the production period, the labor shortage is noticeably improved.