Concomitant with economic development and improvement of living standards, in addition to the demand of quality and service, the consumers’ own experience in the agricultural process is becoming an important component of agricultural development. Recreational farming, recreational fishing and forest ecotourism are parts of “experiencing” in agriculture for the consumers. Henceforth, they are also parts of the New Agriculture Movement.

1. Recreational farming and fishery

Development of recreational agriculture is directed toward healthy experience, ecotourism, natural landscape, and in-place agriculture and rural culture. This is to present the diversified characteristic of Taiwanese agriculture, to create conducible conditions for business development, and to give agro-tourism the depth, the breadth and the character. The major achievements for 2006 are as follows:

1) The COA has issued the operation certificates to 90 leisure farms and permitted 216 farms to convert to leisure farms. It also has delimited 57 areas as recreational agriculture zones, and provided consultations based on the needs with different stages of development as well as the unique characteristic of the areas. The COA has evaluated and selected three recreational agriculture areas that meet international standards. Among them, Chong-shan Recreation Agriculture Park in Dungshan Township, Yilan County has completed its infrastructure, and Nan-jian Recreational Agriculture Park in Nanjhuang Township, Miaoli County, and Chinshui Recreational Agriculture Park in Guanshan Township, Taitung County are in the planning stage.

2) The guidance for managing recreational agriculture was revised on 20 February 2006 to loosen establishment requirement and simplify application procedure. The COA has organized recreational agriculture creativity competition, and assisted in developing 66 creativity products. Also the COA has participated in international travel exhibitions, promoted Taiwan’s agro-tourism, and attracted more than 20,000 tourists to come to Taiwan for its agro-tourism.

3) Under the cooperative program between the business sector and the academy, 77 young persons have completed 400 hours of practical training in leisure farming, and 68 have taken up jobs in leisure farms. Moreover, training programs were provided to 60 persons to strengthen their capacity in managing leisure farms.

4) The fishermen were encouraged to integrate their local unique cultural heritage in the development of leisure fishery, so as to diversify the business in local fishery. Five workshops on leisure fishery and improvement of harbor environment were conducted for seven leisure aquaculture areas. These workshops have attracted 275 participants. To implement the policy on multifunction of fishing harbors, infrastructures of 45 fishing harbors were upgraded. Moreover, the environments of fishing harbors in Badouzih, Keelung; Singda, Kaohsiung; Dongshih, Chiayi; and Hualien were beautified, and new facilities installed and recreational activities held in these harbors. This is to render these fishing harbors as focal points of recreation and leisure by the general public.

2. Forest ecotourism

The COA is promoting forest ecotourism through the management of national forest recreation areas and establishment of national trail system. The efforts include cultivating the environment for ecotourism, accommodating the needs of local communities, and setting up the management system for ecotourism in order to present Taiwan's rich and unique forest resources.

To ensure the sustainable management of ecotourism, and to enable the visitors to experience the quality forest recreation, the COA, in strategic alliances with other organizations, has set the standards for selecting the touring scenic spots, restaurants and hotel entrepreneurs, and traveling agents, and designed ecotour routes for 16 national forest recreation areas. To meet the tourist’ demands for diverse outdoor activities, linkages were set up among different touring scenic spots. Furthermore, the COA has organized 64 forest recreation activities of different types, and provided services to 3.14 million tourists who had visited forest recreation areas. For an improvement of forest recreation facilities, the monitoring system for the environment was set up, and the database of vegetation coverage and soil hardiness for 57 trails collected and stored.

Promotion and education activities on ecotourism are on-going. In this connection, 42 promotion materials on forest recreation areas were published. Furthermore, the two websites on the national trail system and the forest recreation areas (https://recreation.forest.gov.tw/EN/Index) were c onstructed for the general public to access the ecotourism related information. Besides, 23 training workshops on environment education were conducted to train interpreting guides and ecotourism trainers in order to improve quantity and quality of environment education. Hopefully, this drive of proper illustration and guidance will help the general public to experience the mystery of forest environment and appreciate the importance of environment protection.

3. Rural long-stay tourism

As part of the plan for the foresighted and unprecedented agricultural policy, Taiwan is developing long-stay tourism, in parallel with agrotourism and ecotourism, to revitalize the rural village. The industry, aimed at Japanese retirees, is part of the New Agriculture Movement. The nation's public security, health standards and historical ties with Japan could help attracting seven million retiring Japanese baby boomers or so-called block generation. Toward this direction, the COA, in cooperation with universities and the private sector, has established the Taiwan Long Stay Development Association (TLSA) to promote the industry. Also the COA has identified the potential sites for this industry, started stepwise constructions of both software and hardware, and initiated the sales promotion in Japan.