Minister of the Council of Agriculture Mr. Su Jia-chyuan set forth the blueprint for the “New Agricultural Movement: Taiwan’s Agriculture Brighten up.” The master plan is a continuance of current agricultural policy with the added benefit of needed reforms further accompanied by a creative flare. The spirit of the policy calls for a spirit of “creative agriculture, vibrant farmers, charming villages” as a means to develop the previously identified three “productive directives” (production, life and ecology, all of which begin with the Mandarin character for “life”) and the three “strengths” of the agriculture sector (creative strength, the strength to live and the power of charms—all of which end with the Mandarin character for “power”) to further the nation’s sustainable agricultural development objective. This movement, he said, should serve as the vision of policy implementation and strengthen agricultural creativity and sales.

It is Su’s will that this vision more acutely defines the importance of Taiwan’s agricultural sector to society and reasserts its value to it, thereby breaking free from outmoded thinking. This in turn can change traditional concepts and thereby modify subsequent behavior. The repercussions of this and can transform a traditional agriculture into a modernity high-valued industry.

Minister Su took up his post of late January this year and he made it his mission to hammer in the idea that the agricultural sector is not a weak industry by any means. He said that if Taiwan could improve the quality of its agricultural products to the international level that negative adjectives could never be found in a sentence about the value of Taiwanese agricultural products.
This positive way of thinking serves to strengthen the viability and competitiveness of Taiwanese agricultural products. Indeed, this “New Agricultural Movement: Taiwan’s Agriculture brighten up” is the very first time that the COA has set forth such a clear vision for the sector’s measured pace toward new vistas. Policy implementation under the movement walks upon six paths:

as a means to integrate the three “productive directives” of the agricultural sector: productivity, life and ecology, to create a complete sector of an integrated Taiwanese economy.

Mr. Su has emphasized a necessity to improve marketing of agricultural products and to give the public an opportunity not only to participate but also to share in the abundance. He emphasize the importance of the promotion activities suggests that using the people, the land, the substance resources and new policies toward this purpose, activities such as awarding the “Top ten marketable agricultural products,” the “Top ten outstanding farms,” and the “Top ten hotspot of agri-tourism,” can serve through the democratic way, to carry out 「Traceability of agricultural products」、「Wandervogel project」、「Development of energy crops on land」、「Decoupling direct payment for rice」、「Construction of green corridor」and many other new policies.

The “New Agricultural Movement” is not just a bunch of slogans. It provides clearly defined new policy and implementation measures with specific goals that indicate timelines for product production and sale.

For example, the milestones and goals of agricultural products Traceability system are: “to implement agricultural product Traceability system comprehensively by 2015” and “to synchronize the traceability system with EU, USA and Japan for export agricultural product”, not only carry their promise to consumers that within three years there will be products with production information on the shelves of major outlets and chain stores. Su said that he is confident in his ability to carry out the plans, in his ability to convince Taiwanese to rely on the local products and in Taiwan’s agricultural sector to continually revive and innovate over time.

Present at the meeting to announce his new movement included not merely the general manager of the farmers’ and fisheries’ associations , the president of the water conservancy association and a variety of representatives of agribusiness but also invited six representatives to promote the six paths mentioned above, as follows:

from research and development to product saleà Mr. Stan Shi Jhen-Rong [Acer Computer]
from the farmers to the consumersà Mr. Chai Sung-Lin [consumer’s rights foundation]
from domestic to international markets à Taipei 101 Chairman of the Board Mr. Chen Min-Syun
from tradition to innovation “watermelon king” Mr. Chen Wen-Yu [Known-you Seed Company, Ltd.]
from our young to our eldersà Mr. Lai Yan-Syuan [Yin Chuan Organic Rice Co., ]     and
from primary to tertiary production. Mr. Cho Chen-Ming [owner Yilan Toucheng Farm.]

These six representatives have already thrown their support behind the minister’s “New Agricultural Movement” and are true believers that the “Taiwan’s Agriculture brighten up.”