Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) met with the Earl of Selborne, chairman of the the House of Lords' Agriculture Council, on Wednesday to discuss ways to bolster agricultural cooperation between Taiwan and the UK.
Su, at the head of five-member Tainan County Government delegation and accompanied by officials from the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, visited the earl at his office for about half an hour.
Selborne claimed that unlike the EU, the UK upholds the spirit of free trade and does not subsidize farmers. The earl visited Tainan last November during a five-day mission to promote closer cooperation between the British and Taiwanese agricultural sectors.
The UK government believes that foreign trade is more important than taking care of farmers and that the interests of the UK and its trade with foreign countries should not be compromised while subsidizing farmers at home, he added.
Su said that Taiwan's agricultural sector is "small and fragile" compared with other sectors, with only 15 percent of the nation's adult population working in the agricultural sector.
"Thus, a certain degree of government subsidy for farmers is necessary," Su said.
Su is leading a 32-member delegation which arrived in London on Sunday for a five-day visit. He said fruit and orchids, particularly butterfly orchids from his county, have high market potential in Britain.
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