Greenhouse subsidy up to 5.5 million yuan per hectare, choose from nine standard designs
This year, typhoons such as Meranti and Megi struck Taiwan, China one after another. Days of fierce winds and torrential rain damaged 11,000 hectares of vegetables and 2,488 hectares of agricultural facilities. An investigation found that most of the greenhouses and net houses with severe damage had poor wind resistance because their structural materials were insufficiently strong or their designs were improper.
The Council of Agriculture announced today (the 13th) that starting next year, it will provide guidance on 400 hectares of reinforced greenhouse and net house facilities each year, and will raise the subsidy ratio from 1/3 to 1/2, with a maximum subsidy of 5.5 million yuan per hectare. Together with preferential loans to assist farmers and coordinated promotion by local governments, it is expected to reach the goal of 2,000 hectares within 5 years.
Facility agriculture subsidized up to 5.5 million yuan per hectare, with nine standard drawings for reference
The focus of the "5-Year Plan for Facility-Based Agriculture" is to provide guidance on horizontal trellis net houses, roll-up plastic-film greenhouses, and steel-frame reinforced plastic-film greenhouses. Depending on the type of application, the maximum subsidy is 5.5 million yuan per hectare. Other types of facilities, if they pass safety structure testing, will also be evaluated for inclusion in the subsidy program.
"Among them, simple plastic-film greenhouses, horizontal trellis net houses, and horizontal trellis net houses for vegetables and fruits, which suffered the most severe damage in previous wind disasters, are the priority items." Chen Chun-Chi, director of the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, emphasized that these three types of greenhouses and net houses are mostly used for melons, fruits, and leafy vegetables, and guidance must be strengthened and wind resistance increased to avoid affecting people's livelihood needs.
In view of the fact that there had previously been no construction specifications for simple greenhouse and net house facilities, resulting in inconsistent structures; the Council of Agriculture has now commissioned experts and scholars to draw nine different types of standard drawings for greenhouse and net house facilities for farmers to adopt, and provides consultation through soil and water conservation service teams, guiding farmers and operators to build according to the drawings.
If farmers do not build according to the Council of Agriculture's standard drawings, they must submit engineering drawings to the facility technical service team for review before construction may proceed; if they build greenhouse and net house facilities according to the Council of Agriculture's public standard drawings, no drawing review is required.
As for roll-up plastic-film greenhouses and steel-frame reinforced roll-up plastic-film greenhouses, Chen Chun-Chi explained that these two types of greenhouses and net houses had basically already been under guided construction previously and also have a solid wind-resistant foundation, and guidance for their construction will continue to be invested in the future.
