Applications for foreign agricultural workers open; labor shortages cannot be solved by relying only on foreign workers; future labor demand must be reduced
Applications for foreign agricultural workers are gradually opening, with dairy cattle raising and outreach agricultural services among the open categories. Chen Chi-chung, head of the Council of Agriculture, held a press conference on the 11th in Liuying District, Tainan City, a major dairy farming town, to announce the good news. Dairy farmers applying for foreign workers are seen as facing many restrictions. The Liuying District Farmers' Association immediately raised the matter with Chen Chi-chung on the spot, saying dairy farmers are suffering greatly from labor shortages. Under the currently announced standards, dairy farms, regardless of size, are all only allowed to open 1 foreign worker position, which is too strict. Chen Chi-chung responded on the spot that after implementation for some time, the matter would be reviewed again, but labor shortages cannot be solved by relying only on foreign workers; automation and mechanization are the upgrading directions dairy farmers should consider.
The Council of Agriculture said that to alleviate agricultural labor shortages, opening foreign workers is based on the principle of supplementing the workforce. The upper limit for dairy cattle raising is 400 people, and the upper limit for outreach agricultural services is also 400 people; those meeting the qualification requirements may apply. Taking dairy cattle raising as an example, the work is arduous and belongs to the 3K industry characterized by being dirty, dangerous, and hard. Taiwanese people's willingness to work in dairy farming is low, and labor shortages are serious.
The qualifications for dairy cattle raisers who can apply for foreign workers include: natural persons registered and holding a legal ranch registration or livestock and poultry raising registration certificate, raising 80 or more head, and having a total of 4 or more people covered by farmers' insurance and labor insurance on the farm. They may then hire 1 foreign worker, with 1 person as the upper limit. Chen Yu-hsin, chief executive officer of the Liuying District Farmers' Association, said that dairy farmers in Liuying raise dairy cattle, with as few as 80 head and as many as 500 head, but all can only hire 1 foreign worker. Dairy farmers have reported that the allocation is problematic, and labor shortages at livestock farms are truly serious. Dairy farmers strongly demanded that the farmers' association reflect this to the Council of Agriculture, hoping that quotas can be increased in the future.
Chen Chi-chung responded to Chen Yu-hsin that the upper limit of 400 people was tentatively set for the first year of implementation, and in the future adjustments will be discussed with the Ministry of Labor depending on implementation conditions. However, Chen Chi-chung cited overseas dairy cattle raising experience: under fully automated equipment, 1 person can handle 200 dairy cattle. Therefore, dairy farmers should seek to enhance their competitiveness through automation and mechanization. Solving labor shortages is not about providing as much manpower as possible; rather, the demand for and dependence on manpower should be reduced.
If dairy cattle raisers need it, they can apply and manage it themselves. This year the upper limit is 400 foreign workers; give it a try first. Another type of agricultural foreign worker application is outreach agricultural services. The employers are farmers' associations, fishermen's associations, cooperatives related to agriculture, forestry, fishery, and animal husbandry, or nonprofit organizations, referred to as outreach institutions. Outreach institutions hire foreigners to engage in outreach agricultural work, limited to direct physical work related to agriculture, forestry, fishery, and animal husbandry.
Chen Chi-chung said whether the outreach service policy can succeed depends on the outreach institutions. After farmers' and fishermen's associations, cooperatives, or nonprofit organizations hire foreign workers, they then dispatch them according to farmers' needs and applications. However, Chen Chi-chung was worried about one thing: whether farm household income would be affected, because the temporary workers needed in agriculture are usually opportunities for rural residents to earn extra money. He repeatedly asked the farmers' associations, when dispatching foreign workers, to give priority to this issue, using professional teams, Gengxin teams, technical teams, machinery teams, and work-release prison labor first, and even holiday farmers and college student part-time work, before considering dispatching outreach agricultural services.
Chen Chi-chung admitted he worried that agriculture would be unable to progress in the future. If foreign workers are brought in because it is very convenient and very cheap, agricultural work may in the future face the problem of continued low wages. This is why over the past dozen years, although the economy developed, merely seeking to open up foreign labor ultimately made domestic wages unable to rise. Therefore, although the government has opened agricultural foreign workers, the Council of Agriculture offers greater incentives for hiring professional teams, Gengxin teams, technical teams, machinery teams, work-release prison labor, holiday farmers, and college student part-time workers.
Improving agricultural labor shortages cannot rely only on opening foreign workers. Chen Chi-chung pointed out that in 107, 91 agricultural manpower teams were established, recruiting 1,935 people, accumulating more than 270,000 person-days of work, and serving more than 4,000 farms. Through measures such as holiday farmers and encouraging students to work part-time, the willingness of Taiwanese people to engage in agriculture has also been increased. The Council of Agriculture assesses that these measures should already have improved half of the domestic agricultural seasonal labor shortage demand.
Opening up foreigners to engage in dairy cattle raising and outreach agricultural services has begun, supplementing the agricultural workforce in a timely manner.