In order to accelerate the promotion of Rural Regeneration, in 2017 the COA transformed it into Rural Regeneration 2.0. Under this, the rural community is taken as the axis of development, enabling rural communities in areas with different special local features to appropriately develop. We will, depending upon local industries, natural resources, and special social and cultural features, bring into play regional diffusion, building regional development networks with different functional attributes. Also, in response to the impacts from social and climate change, the COA will use smart-technology innovation and social innovation to give shape to resilient rural communities.

　　Rural Regeneration 2.0 expands participation by different stakeholders including citizens and local governments, introduces new viewpoints and vitality, and strengthens the platform for promotion of cross-disciplinary integration. It fits together production, ecology, and daily life as well as partnership relations. Proposed elements of the Rural Regeneration 2.0 “SMART Senpai” policy place emphasis on small farms, the spirit of Satoyama and Satoumi, marketing, local production with local consumption, food and agriculture education, health services for the elderly, the inflow of manpower, renewable energy, and group coordination. These will serve as primers for the introduction of rural policies and agricultural policies, and will conform with the New Agriculture Innovation Promotion Program, strengthen various plans that are part of Rural Regeneration, create ripple and resonance effects, and drive synergy in rural development.

　　From December 18 to 19 of 2017, the COA held the “2017 Rural Development Forum,” with COA Minister Lin Tsung-hsien delivering a speech about the future outlook for rural development. Rural communities should start from the precondition of innovation and modernized standards of living, and move toward sustainable development with a suitable living and working environment. At the Forum, business people, government representatives, and scholars from fields such as rural ecology and production deeply explored new models and new values for rural innovative development and future development opportunities, including upgrading the competitiveness of rural industries, maintenance of the rural ecology and agricultural scenery, quality of life and economic diversity in rural communities, and local capacity-building and construction of partnership relations.

　　In 2017, the COA went deep into rural communities all over Taiwan to train high-quality rural community manpower. We have cumulatively offered training to 154,890 residents in 2,542 communities, which is more than half (60%) of the number of rural communities. The Rural Regeneration training program entered Stage 2.0 in 2017, with persons trained being no longer limited to rural communities, to introduce diversified and innovative knowledge and skills, in order to raise the overall competitiveness of rural areas.

　　To upgrade the quality of the living environment in rural communities, the COA encouraged rural communities to undertake regional resource integration, to create focal points for themed development for regions or along axes with corresponding belts alongside, by guiding the integration of rural industrial, academic, community, and government agency resources, and continuing to commit these to rural development. In addition, the COA continued to promote more corporate-style management of rural community industries. We selected outstanding rural production or operating bodies with potential and guided them to transform the state of their companies or co-operatives. The aim was to strengthen their use of corporatestyle management and their innovation capabilities, to go a step further and integrate small farmers in the community, to expand the overall production capacity and production value of rural industries, and to increase the number of young people choosing agriculture as a profession. As of the end of 2017 there were a cumulative total of 80 firms that had received guidance, with subsidies totaling NT$104 million approved, and boosting of private sector investment by NT$127 million