Recently the Council of Agriculture has faced pressure to restructure and expand its operations; this includes the transfer of rural regeneration affairs to the Planning Division of the Council of Agriculture, and the food and agriculture education affairs, which Deputy Minister Chen Chi-chung has also committed to having the Council of Agriculture carry out. At the same time, the public has many expectations for the Council of Agriculture's administrative work; these include the shortage of agricultural labor, the many disputes over whether to bring in agricultural migrant workers, the deterioration of the ecological environment around rural areas, the policy tool of farmland readjustment being mainly the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior, the promotion of food safety affairs, stabilizing fluctuations in grain prices, and the promotion of certification and verification systems, among others.

Therefore, this article first analyzes the administrative arrangements of the central agricultural authorities of three countries for comparison, and further provides how Taiwan's agricultural administration units should position the political promotion of agricultural production and rural development.

Comparing how Britain, Canada and Taiwan position agriculture and rural development

The subordinate units of the Council of Agriculture of the Republic of China include: the Agriculture and Food Agency, the Fisheries Agency, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, the Agricultural Finance Agency, the Forestry Bureau, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, as well as many research and operational units. Among them there is no unit specifically responsible for coordinating the planning of rural development-related administration (though the Rural Construction Section of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau carries out rural administration), while farmers' administration at most is related to the Counseling Division within the Council of Agriculture; even basic administrative guidelines such as "three lives and three agricultures" cannot be properly taken care of.

Therefore it is necessary to introduce a comparison of the administrative units of other countries, and to analyze the Council of Agriculture's shortcomings in farmers' and rural administration. The comparison targets adopted in this section are materials available in English: Canada, a major agricultural country with a population comparable to Taiwan, and Great Britain, an island country with an area comparable to Taiwan; if other countries need to be compared later, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Israel, which have outstanding agricultural performance and comparable areas, should be targets worth comparing.

Canada's Ministry of Agriculture

The first-level units of Canada's Ministry of Agriculture include: the Food Inspection Agency (already transferred to the Ministry of Health), the Dairy Commission, the Grain Commission, the Farm Credit Agency, the Agricultural Products Commission, the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal, and the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency, while Canada's rural development is carried out by the agriculture departments of the provinces.

Because Canada has a vast territory and belongs to large-scale agriculture, farmers' incomes are relatively high; it is not a suitable object for the Council of Agriculture of the Republic of China to learn from. However, its Farm Credit Agency also has the role of rural agricultural production relief loans and supporting the development of agricultural enterprises, and its "gold-collar farmers" service spans every township across Canada; it can be regarded as Canada's institution for farmer services and rural policy.

The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs operates separately from Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has a variety of administrative and staff units under it.

• Non-administrative units: the Forestry Commission and the Water Services Regulation Authority.
• Administrative units: the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, and the Rural Payments Agency.
• Advisory bodies: the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, the Independent Agricultural Appeals Panel, the Science Advisory Council, and the Livestock Products Committee
• Arbitration units include: plant variety and seed arbitration
• Non-administrative affiliated units: the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, the Royal Botanic Gardens Board of Trustees, the Consumer Committee, the Environment Agency, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, the Marine Management Organisation, the National Forest Company, Natural England and landscape conservation staff, and the Marine Fisheries Agency
• Other units include: landscape conservation, flower market management, and national parks.
  

What can the stones of other hills offer for thinking about Taiwan's agricultural administrative bodies

From the deployment of other countries' agricultural administrative units, several conclusions can be roughly drawn:

• Agricultural quarantine and inspection review: The quarantine and inspection of both countries are mainly based on an arbitration system; their function is similar to our country's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, yet they can conduct arbitration of animal and plant quarantine and inspection similar to courts, public hearings and debates. They not only retain the function of border inspection, but also deepen the rule of law to safeguard national agricultural interests; this is worth learning from.
• Rural affairs: The UK places the rural payments unit as a directly subordinate administrative unit, while Canada delegates rural affairs to the management of each province. The UK even incorporates agricultural water regulation into a direct unit within the department, showing how deeply it values "blue gold," the most important element for agricultural production.

In addition, reflecting on the current administrative system of the Council of Agriculture of the Republic of China, it lacks a coordinating body for farmer services (welfare, relief, technology and entrepreneurial operation) and the rural environment (three lives and three agricultures, sustainable environment, farmland readjustment and improvement of rural infrastructure), leading to serious deterioration of rural environmental infrastructure in Taiwan, a frenzy of farmhouse construction due to the amendment of the Agricultural Development Act, and some rural regeneration plans having poor results because specific groups monopolize the tenders.

Therefore the establishment of an "Agriculture and Rural Development Agency" must inevitably become an urgent task; recovering the policy tools for agriculture and rural development will become an important administrative plan for the Council of Agriculture to promote the revitalization of Taiwan's agriculture and face the impact of free trade on the agricultural industry.

What is the "Agriculture and Rural Development Agency" supposed to do?

The newly established "Agriculture and Rural Development Agency" should be an action-plan-oriented, flexible administrative unit, playing an important role in solving farmer services and rural development; everything including farmer services, agricultural industry development and consumption, and the rural environment should be integrated into this agency.

At the same time, in response to the operational restructuring of the Ministry of Environment and Resources, the ministry will absorb the Forestry Bureau, the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, the Endemic Species Research Institute and the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau's soil and water conservation operations, causing the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau's operations to shrink. At this time, the Rural Construction Section operations of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau should be released and expanded into the Agriculture and Rural Development Agency; absorbing the Agriculture and Food Agency's related policies on agricultural industry marketing and counseling, so that the Agriculture and Food Agency can focus more on grain policy planning and implementation; and consolidating part of the operations of the Counseling Division, the International Division, the Science and Technology Division, and the Farmland Water Resources Division into this agency.

In addition, current work such as developing an environmentally friendly and livable production environment, management of agricultural product wholesale markets, agricultural product marketing, and counseling agricultural product processing should be released to the newly established "Agriculture and Rural Development Agency." The Legislative Yuan should also cooperate with the amendment of the Agricultural Basic Act to repeal the Rural Regeneration Act and the Agricultural Development Act, two bills that are somewhat outdated and have been criticized as not helping agricultural development; from this situation, reposition the Council of Agriculture's operational organization and administrative responsibilities.

Therefore within the Council of Agriculture only the standing units, the Planning Division, the International Division and the Science and Technology Division would remain, supplemented by the scientific research of the various experimental units; and the Agriculture and Food Agency, the Fisheries Agency, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, the Agricultural Finance Agency, the Agriculture and Rural Development Agency and the Animal Husbandry Division would carry out front-line administrative work. The "Agriculture and Rural Development Agency" should include the following operational units, to devote itself to promoting sustainable rural development, the environmental and ecological impact of agriculture, and the important function of improving farmers' livelihoods. Further operations should include:

• Farmers' Service Branch
  • Integrate farmers' social relief and reform farmers' retirement annuity insurance affairs
  • Counsel farmers' associations in each district to set up farmer service windows and unify farmers' consultation affairs
  • Integrate young farmer entrepreneurship resources and manpower policy planning
  • Implement agricultural extension and technical consultation affairs
  • Promote governance reform of farmers' associations
  • Integrate the operations of other related units such as the former Counseling Division and improvement stations

• Agricultural Industry Development Branch
  • Integrate the resources of various improvement stations and universities and colleges for industry counseling
  • Strengthen national domestic and export cold chain and collection and packaging operations
  • Promote Organic Agriculture 3.0 and diversified agricultural product certification
  • Counsel farmers', farmers' and fishermen's association products, and supervise the operation of wholesale markets and fruit and vegetable companies
  • Assist the Agriculture and Food Agency in stabilizing agricultural product price ranges and set up a vegetable price stabilization fund
  • Promote domestic and international marketing and trade of agricultural products
  • Provide dedicated counseling for distinctive agricultural product processing and mass production
  • Other related operations of the former International Division's International Marketing Section and Trade Management Section

• Rural Environment Branch:
  • Promote the second-generation rural regeneration plan
  • Handle the nationwide farmhouse and farmland price problems
  • Integrate rural land readjustment and farm road and waterway planning
  • Discuss with the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau and the Water Resources Agency to establish an agricultural water management mechanism
  • Promote satoyama rural development, and promote large-area organic villages and the rural ecological environment
  • Other related operations of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau's Rural Construction Section, the Planning Division's Farmland Utilization Section, and the Farmland Water Resources Division

• Agricultural and Food Safety and Food and Agriculture Education Division
  • Coordinate the overall strategic planning of agricultural and food safety and food and agriculture education
  • Promote food and agriculture education at all levels of units, and awareness of farming and consumer responsibility
  • Coordinate the matching of organic agricultural product suppliers, school nutritional lunches and restaurants
  • Devote to the promotion of food and agricultural and food safety and support policy planning staff
  • Implementation of part of the former Planning Division's operations

The core that this article wants to convey is that the Council of Agriculture should break away from a grain-centered mindset and actively deploy administrative bodies and use policy intervention to manifest the multifunctionality of agriculture, raising the value of the three agricultures. Boldly leading with the "Agriculture and Rural Development Agency," it should make up for the coordinating policy implementation body for farmer services (agricultural social policy), agricultural industry development (structural policy), and the rural environment (farmland, planning and environmental ecology-oriented policy) that the Council of Agriculture has long neglected; under it, the "Farmers' Service Branch" promotes agricultural manpower and farmers' retirement insurance, the dedicated "Agricultural Industry Development Branch" promotes domestic and international agricultural product trade and overall industrial chain integration, the "Rural Environment Branch" guards soil and water resources and promotes balanced rural development, and the "Agricultural and Food Safety and Food and Agriculture Education Division" assists with staff work on agricultural and food safety and specializes food and agriculture education operations. Only then can the future Agricultural Basic Act's policy plans related to raising agricultural income, enhancing the multifunctionality of agriculture, and creating a healthy rural environment be implemented. The above views are not thoroughly considered and need readers to jointly correct them.