What popular products have a market in smallholder processing? Free sample-making and consultation from agricultural experts
Agricultural processing helps raise farmers' incomes, but farmers worry about cost-effectiveness and dare not invest rashly. As the Council of Agriculture vigorously promotes smallholder primary processing, it has taken the lead this month in progressively opening the Agricultural Value-Added Sample-Making Centers and the Agricultural Processing Integration Service Center. Following the model of Miyazaki Prefecture in Japan, the government provides processing equipment and technology and guides farmers on hygiene and safety standards. Farmers can first try sample-making and then carry out subsequent market assessment, so that agricultural processing can flourish in every region.
Before smallholder processing, first ask experts to make samples and assess market feasibility
The Agricultural Products Production and Certification Management Act recently passed its first reading in the Legislative Yuan. The Council of Agriculture will be responsible for managing primary agricultural processing. Small-scale processing on farmland will be able to obtain a "primary agricultural processing facility" certificate, equivalent to the "factory registration certificate" under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which will provide substantial help for smallholder processors in expanding into mass-market retail channels and exports.
Before actually establishing a small-scale primary agricultural processing facility, farmers can first send their agricultural products to a research and extension station for sample-making, produce primary processed goods, and evaluate the product, market, and so on. Moreover, within one year, the sample-making centers and integration centers will charge no fees at all.
The Council of Agriculture has established Agricultural Value-Added Sample-Making Centers at the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Tainan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Kaohsiung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Taitung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, and the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, and has set up the Agricultural Processing Integration Service Center in the Central Taiwan Innovation Campus of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. From processed product types, actual sample-making, packaging design, market planning, to channel sales, it provides one-stop assistance to help farmers enter the processing market.
