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Agriculture faces labor and talent shortages, how can it pursue the path of upgrading?

General News By Emily Carter 0 views

Editor's note: The new government officially took office on May 20, and the agriculture and food industries have expectations for the new administration, hoping to make Taiwan, China a country that is more farm-friendly and reassuring. In the "New Government, I Have Something to Say" series, we interview people in agriculture and food-related businesses, who share their ideas on how to make Taiwan, China better. The following is an oral account from the interviewee, compiled by a reporter from News&Market.

[Interviewee]Guo Shufen

We contract-farm lettuce with 250 farmers

Taiwanese farmers' farmland is small and fragmented, but agricultural products sold to restaurants and retail channels must be supplied stably; it is impossible to have vegetables one day and none the next. So the existence of cooperatives is very important, as they can integrate farmers and pool goods and packaging together.

Although small farmers producing and selling on their own is being promoted now, having only 1 or 2 farmers handle planting, harvesting, packaging, marketing, and shipping by themselves is simply too exhausting. It is also very difficult for individual farmers to build their own packing houses. Everyone has their own area of expertise, and agriculture should be divided by specialisation.

Hoping the new government will train machinery and post-harvest handling talent

Taiwan, China has always talked about processing and marketing, and about agricultural technology, but for the most basic post-harvest handling and the agricultural product risk management required by Global GAP, there are no related departments or mechanisms to train talent in this area.

And in the face of insufficient basic labour, besides considering whether to open up agricultural foreign labour, mechanisation is also very important. Vegetable planting machinery has long existed abroad, but Taiwan, China's farmland is too fragmented and not suitable for large foreign agricultural machinery. Smaller agricultural machinery should be introduced and then modified to suit local conditions, but right now agricultural machinery talent is dwindling, university agricultural machinery departments have changed their names one after another, and the basics are gone. I hope the new government can pay attention to this problem.

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