Industry has raced ahead of agriculture in Taiwan during the last 40 years, leaving its erstwhile right-hand man behind and in need of assistance. Development i s held back by the diminishing market for farming produce, the aging of the rural population and the pressures of free trade. Academics and officials have been planning how to jolt agriculture back onto its feet. But first there are policies to pursue and difficulties to resolve, before farming can achieve a new competitive, technology-intensive face in Taiwan.
The six-year national development plan has set out a course of development for agriculture. In this issue we interview the chairman of the Council of Agriculture, Yu Yu-hsien, who discusses transformation and the underlying principles in agricultural policy, and which way the future lies. Just as in the upgrading of industry, agriculture needs to find new ways and means for itself. It will have to develop items with higher added-value, and dispense with uncompetitive pollution-creating produce.
In connection with higher added-value, we report on the need for paten t protection of new seed strains, as the seedling industry strives to become technology intensive. We also look at another way forward for agriculture that has emerged--"recreation agriculture"--where farming progresses from production into the tertiary sector.
Meanwhile the environmental cost of agriculture is finally coming under scrutiny, long after industrial pollution first became a topic for public concern.
A look at these and other issues follows.
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