Interview with the Minister of the Council of Agriculture, Part 02"Chen Chi-chung's Three Priorities in Office: African Swine Fever Prevention, Stabilizing Production and Marketing, and Farmer Welfare
(Continued from the previous article) Chen Chi-chung, a scholar from a farming family, is the driving force behind President Tsai Ing-wen's new agricultural policy. After the Tsai administration took office in 2016, Chen Chi-chung served as deputy minister of the Council of Agriculture. Through three successive changes of premier, and after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the 2018 nine-in-one elections, then Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien asked to step down. Chen Chi-chung had insisted on leaving together with him, but because of the combined internal and external pressures of African swine fever and production and marketing adjustments, he took over as minister of the Council of Agriculture, hoping to complete the unfinished path of agricultural reform. The following is the content of an exclusive interview with Chen Chi-chung by News & Market, presented in Q&A form. (To read the previous article, please click here)
Q: Having served as deputy minister of the Council of Agriculture for more than two years and now taking over as minister, what policies do you still want to carry out but have not yet done? What will be different in the future?
A: There are still many new agricultural policies that have not yet been fully implemented. Besides the hardware such as processing and cold chain facilities, there is also software, namely the farmer welfare system, including farmers' health insurance, farmers' occupational accident insurance, agricultural insurance, and a farmer retirement system.
My father went to apply fertilizer today, and the fertilizer bucket fell and hit his foot, requiring six or seven stitches. Both hospitalization and outpatient visits have relevant payments. This farmers' occupational accident insurance is so favorable, with a monthly premium of only 15 yuan, but out of 1.16 million farmers, how is it that only just over 100,000 have enrolled? This shows that many things still need to be strengthened. There is also farmers' health insurance, which used to be based on land rather than the person; now anyone actually engaged in farming can join. For example, for riverbed land, as long as there is permission from the River Management Office, one can join farmers' insurance.
There is also the use of local ingredients in school lunches, for which the coverage rate is only 54%, still leaving room before reaching 100 percent, and much of what is used is only traceable; why not use more organic and production-and-traceability-certified products? There are still many of these things that need to be fully implemented.
