Coping with climate change

In recent years, global climate change has caused instability in the production and supply of staple foods around the world. In response, and on the basis of concepts drawn from “risk management,” on June 15 of 2010, the COA convened a “Conference on Policies to Adapt Agriculture to Cope with Climate Change.” At the same time, the COA joined the special task force on “Policy Planning for Climate Change” convened by the Council for Economic Planning and Development of the Executive Yuan, and has proceeded with research in the field of “Agricultural Production and Biodiversity” under the National Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan (2011-2016). Such programs help to integrate the work of different ministries, with the COA plays its own particular role in each.

In the future, depending upon the level of risk, a food security system will be constructed that will incorporate (a) technology to improve the ability of food industries to overcome negative environmental trends, (b) a data monitoring and evaluation network which will include data about the climate and environment in Taiwan and about changes in domestic and international markets, (c) even more effort to protect the land and water in forest areas, and (d) stronger support for biodiversity, in order to ensure sustainability of agriculture development and food security.

Constructing a food reserve mechanism

Under the regulations governing the keeping of a national rice reserve, issued by the Executive Yuan in September of 2006, the government ensures that an adequate and stable supply of rice is available to consumers through measures such as purchasing of domestic rice at guaranteed prices, government purchasing of rice from abroad, and release of public stocks on to the market.

In order to ensure food stability and security in the ROC and the Asia-Pacific region, the COA has called for the creation of an APEC Emergency Food Reserves Mechanism, to be organized cooperatively by APEC economies, thereby allowing the burden of risk to be shared. If any participating economy faces a situation in which extreme climate change affects the stable supply of food, it could receive food aid through this mechanism. At the August 2010 APEC Food Security Forum, held in Taipei and attended by nearly 100 representatives from 20 economies, delegates unanimously recognized the value of building an APEC food reserve mechanism. In October of 2010, at the APEC Ministerial Meeting on Food Security, held in Niigata, Japan, Ministers adopted the initiative of Chinese Taipei to convene another forum (to which all APEC economies would be invited) on how such a reserve mechanism would operate. Through these steps we have clearly made a concrete contribution to safeguarding regional food security.

Expansion of the “ Small Landlords, Large Tenants ” program

Some of the main problems facing agriculture in Taiwan are that the farming population is aging, cropland is divided into small areas, parcels of land are scattered, and much of the land is now going fallow. To deal with these, since May 2009 the COA has been promoting a policy of “Small Landlords, Large Tenants.” In 2010 the COA decided to help tenants with large amounts of land to upgrade operational efficiency, and thus began (a) guiding them towards enterprise-style management, (b) assisting them in improving the basic environment in the lands they rent, and (c) assisting them in improving their facilities, equipment, and capabilities to do production and marketing.

As of the end of December of 2,010, there were 8,121 small landlords in the program, as well as 703 large tenants, with rented land totaling 4,056 hectares. The COA provided guidance toward enterprise-style management in 178 cases. Large tenants had, on average, eight hectares of land each (including self-owned land), or about seven times more than the 1.1 hectares of farmland held by the average farm household in Taiwan. This allows effective introduction of larger scale operations. The average age of the full-time farmers who have been included in the guidance program is 42, compared to 62 for the average farm owner in Taiwan, so the effect in terms of rejuvenation is clear. In addition, 90 large tenant farmers underwent agricultural training, and 88 took classes offered by the COA on the operation and management of large farms.

Encouraging use of fallow land

Faced with global climate change and rising prices for food internationally, it has become important to ensure that supplies and prices of food remain stable in Taiwan. Having assessed international and domestic supply and demand for food, the COA has adopted measures to bring fallow land back into use. These complement the policy of “Small Landlords, Large Tenants” in that we especially encourage landowners to rent out fallow land to tenants who will rent contiguous plots to make larger farms. The COA offers incentives for cultivation on fallow land of rice, corn for animal feed, organic crops, or other crops whose production and marketing present few problems, and is also encouraging turning fallow land to afforestation. Several objectives can be thus achieved: increasing the self-sufficiency rate in food, increasing the scale and efficiency of agricultural operations, and ensuring farmers a reasonable income. These measures have already shown results: In 2010, the converted area was 54,000 hectares, an increase of 5,000 over the figure for 2009 (49,000 hectares).