1. Amendments were announced to some articles of the “Animal Protection Act.”

2. Amendments were announced to Articles 23, 37, and 41 of the “Irrigation Association Organization Act.” The amendments took effect retroactively from November 23, 2009.

3. The reference price for purchasing of fresh milk by dairy product factories was raised by NT$1.65 per kilogram, making it NT$19.89 per kilo for the winter, NT$25.38 per kilo for the warm season, and NT$27.38 for the summer season.

4. Working jointly with the Ministry of the Interior, the COA announced revisions to Articles 1, 2, and 12-1 of the “Regulations Setting Standards for Determination of Farmers Engaged in Agricultural Work Applying to Join in Farmers’ Health Insurance Programs and for Examination of Their Qualifications.” The revisions were made to protect the right of people who only collect benefits for the elderly under labor insurance during the agricultural off-season (as defined in the Farmers’ Health Insurance Act) to continue to participate in farmers health insurance.

5. 1733 metric tons of publicly held crops were released on to the market in order to meet the high demand for rice just before the Lunar New Year.

6.The COA attended the 8th Multilateral Meeting on Management of High Seas Fisheries in the North Pacific Ocean, aiming to uphold the rights of our country’ s long-range fishing fleet.

7. The COA organized the First International Symposium on Orchids of the International Society for Horticultural Science, thereby promoting exchanges of information between ROC orchid professionals and experts with their counterparts in other countries.

8. Three seminars were held to discuss two key issue areas: (a) The contents of ECFA and the benefits of the signing of ECFA by the government; (b) How farmers associations will adapt their operations to the creation of new special municipalities, and how laws and regulations governing farmers associations will have to be amended.

9. The Agricultural Bank of Taiwan assisted the credit departments of farmers and fishermen’s associations to install bar-code readers, and these credit departments began to provide services for insured persons to pay premiums for National Pension Insurance.

10. Under a program for people to adopt fruit trees, as of January 26, individuals had adopted 1687 units, while corporations had adopted 1228 units.

11. The COA continued to assist in post-Typhoon Morakot disaster reconstruction and provide technical services, continuing wth general reconstruction, financial assistance to disaster victims, and enhanced marketing of agricultural products from the disaster areas. These were important steps to complete restoration of the agricultural economy in these areas.

12. As part of efforts to deepen export markets for agricultural products from Taiwan and create stable long-term channels for such exports, the COA set up a “Taiwan Foods Plaza” in Hong Kong and a “Taiwan Food Products Pavilion” in Tokyo.

13. A devastating earthquake struck Haiti, a diplomatic partner of the ROC. The COA expedited quarantine procedures for search dogs so that Taiwan’s search-and-rescue team could get to the disaster area as quickly as possible.