Pingtung County Industry Relief: Leisure Farm Operators Smile

The Council of Agriculture of the Executive Yuan recently proposed relief and revitalization measures for industries and businesses experiencing operational difficulties due to the impact of severe special infectious pneumonia (COVID-19), offering on-site improvement and service innovation incentive grant applications to existing legally registered leisure farm operators. The content includes software and hardware improvements within leisure farms and enhancement of on-site quality, employee wage subsidy programs, etc. The maximum grant per farm is NT$500,000, and the employee wage subsidy is NT$15,000 per person per month.

Currently, Pingtung County has taken the initiative to hold briefing sessions to allow leisure farms in the county to fully understand the content of the relief and revitalization plan, and to assist operators in submitting plans. A total of 31 legally registered leisure farm operators' applications were accepted, accounting for 84% of all farms in the county. Those reviewed by the Council of Agriculture of the Executive Yuan as meeting the funding criteria have accumulated to 18 farms so far. The applied funding for leisure farm software and hardware improvement grants reached NT$7.53 million, and the employee wage subsidy funding reached NT$3.6 million. The relevant funds have been disbursed to leisure farms successively, and the remaining cases are still undergoing review.

Huang Kuo-jung, Director of the Agriculture Department of Pingtung County, stated that there are currently 37 legally registered leisure farms in Pingtung County, and 31 farms have applied for the relief and revitalization plan. The purpose of the plan is to encourage leisure farms to strengthen their capabilities during this period, assist leisure farm operators in carrying out on-site improvements and meeting related manpower needs, and enhance the quality of leisure agriculture (farm) sites and services as well as the overall competitiveness of the agricultural tourism market. In the future, once the pandemic ends or subsides, new incentive plans will be introduced to encourage tourists to spend at leisure farms.