Smallholder processing is hot, but which products have a market? Experts help you with sample production and consultation
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 successively opening an agricultural value-added sample production center and an 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 production before conducting subsequent market assessments, aiming to let agricultural processing flourish everywhere.
Before smallholder processing, first ask experts to do sample production and assess market feasibility
The Agricultural 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 agricultural land will be able to obtain a "primary agricultural product processing site" certificate, equivalent to the "factory registration certificate" under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, providing substantial help for smallholder processors to expand into mass-channel shelf placement and exports.
Before actually establishing a small primary agricultural product processing site, farmers can first send agricultural products to improvement stations for sample production, make primary processed products, and evaluate the products, market, and so on. Within one year, the sample production centers and integration center will charge no fees at all.
The Council of Agriculture has established agricultural value-added sample production 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 Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, and has set up an agricultural processing integration service center in the Central Taiwan Innovation Campus of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. From processing product types, actual sample production, packaging design, market planning, to channel sales, it provides end-to-end assistance for farmers entering the processing market.
