For Your Benefit: COA Launches a Full Range of Promotion Measures for Organic and Environment Friendly Farming

With “Environment Friendly Farming” being placed among top 10 agendas of New Agriculture Policy, the COA has committed to enlarging the cultivation area of organic and environment friendly farming, implementing or having implemented a comprehensive set of supporting measures. On top of directly subsidizing environment friendly farming activities, the subsidy rate for certification and examination fees and the subsidy amounts for greenhouse and net house construction, production of processing equipment, and use of organic fertilizers are also being raised. These efforts are expected to encourage farmers who are presently engaging in environment friendly farming to continue their work and attracts farmers used to conventional practices to make the transition. At the consumption end, schools and group catering suppliers are guided to use organic ingredients in their daily operation, which expands the marketing channels for the producers, allowing consumption to drive the growth. The interim target is now set at 10,000 hectares of environment friendly cultivation by the end of 2017.

Increased funding and widened scope gradually direct the agricultural production system toward environmental friendliness
Although the COA has been supporting organic and an array of certified farming activities for quite many years, previous annual budgets had never exceeded NTD 300 million. Starting from this year, not only the scope of support expands, allowing more farmers to take parts, the funding also rises significantly to NTD 1.3 billion annually, showing government’s genuine commitment to organic and environment friendly farming. With the enactment of Directions for Approving Environment Friendly Farming Promotion Groups as well as Directions for Subsidizing Organic and Environment Friendly Farming on the 5th of this May (2017), the COA started accepting application for the recognition of environment friendly promotion groups. Once a organization obtains the promotion group status, the farmers that registered with or under the scrutiny of such group would consequently be deemed environment friendly and gain access to relevant subsidies. The direct subsidy on land, which is newly introduced this year, aims at rewarding farmers for their efforts in improving the eco-system and compensating their loss in profit. Depending on the cultivation types, the rate of subsidy varies from NTD 30,000 to NTD 80,000 per hectare. This should be an excellent way of using public resource to support agricultural transformation for the benefit of the environment. Aside from encouraging present agricultural operators to continue their efforts in environment friendly farming, these initiatives will also lead farmers on the sideline to follow suit.

Multiple support measures for farmers to choose from, available now

The COA says, besides the direct subsidy on organic and environment friendly farming, other relevant expenses of farmers like certification fees or test fees can also be reimbursed up to 90%. In addition, as organic fertilizers are the most widely utilized form of fertilizers in environment friendly and organic farms, users of organic fertilizers now see their benefit rises as well; for each 10 tons of organic fertilizer applied on a hectare land, the users receive NTD 30,000, an increase from previous NTD 20,000. On top of which, per every hectare use of micro-bio fertilizers, NTD 5,000 support will be provided. The above subsidies are available for application as of now. If you wish to benefit from any of these policies, please visit your local township offices, farmers’ associations, cooperatives, agricultural organizations, etc. to apply.

The COA stresses that environment friendly farming is not only a paradigm for future agricultural development but also establish a positive role of agricultural production in improving bio-diversity. To facilitate the long-term development of organic and environment friendly farming, the COA has formulated the draft to Organic Agriculture Act, which will provide a legal basis for competent authority to implement support and advisement measures in this area and spurs the growth of the entire industry.

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For Your Benefit: COA Launches a Full Range of Promotion Measures for Organic and Environment Friendly Farming