IV. Upgrading of Agriculture and Livestock Industries
To establish overall quality control of safe tea products, the COA encouraged close cooperation between tea farmers and tea processing factories. The project has attracted 176 processing factories and 1,591 households for a joint effort, and involved 2,040 hectares of tea farms. A total of 6,255 hectares in high standard orchards for mangoes, pineapples, bananas, lychee, papayas, citrus, grapes, guavas, star fruits, soursops, wax apples, and jujube was also established.
Toward a safer agriculture, the COA continued to establish tracking protocols and good agricultural practices for various agri-products. During the year, there were 72 commodities and 44 organic items placed under the traceability system.
There were 16 households with 245 hectares of farmland certified as traceable organic farms. They supplied 712 tons of certified organic commodities in 2007. In the same year, 27 production and marketing units with 255 hectares of orchards supplied 6,343 tons of certified traceable fruits, and eight production units with 155 hectares supplied 4,582 tons of certified traceable vegetables.
To highlight unique product brands, the COA set up 33 rice production and marketing zones. The government did not procure the rice from these zones, thus saving the government NT$964.55 million a year. The COA also helped the farmers to enter into contracts with rice suppliers allowing them to sell 57,582 tons of paddies at a price of NT$290,000 million.
In relation to the swine herd improvement, 3,500 head along with 500 head of their progeny were screened for quality meat gene(s), and 1,050 head for porcine stress gene(s). Also 240,000 doses of semen were supplied. The dairy herd improvement program, involving 20,000 heads, was also implemented to improve dairy cows for efficient milk production with reduced cost. In addition, the deer farms were evaluated to improve their competitiveness and image.
The COA assisted 21 slaughterhouses to set up their own checking systems to test drug residues before slaughtering. As for white broilers, 98 percent were tested free from drug residues.
