The government plans to appeal to young people in a bid to rejuvenate the aging agricultural sector, Council of Agriculture Minister Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻) said on Thursday.
Over the next 10 years, the government aims to encourage 30,000 young people to enter the sector, Tsao said, adding that next year, the first year of the program, it wants 3,000 young people to become involved in agricultural businesses.
In a report submitted to the Executive Yuan, the council said that the average age of agricultural workers has reached 62, indicating that the sector is aging and needs to attract young blood to reverse the situation.
Encouraging young people to take an interest in agriculture is expected to create more job opportunities and improve the local job market, he said.
In an effort to incentivize the young generation, council Deputy Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) told a news conference that the government would ask Land Bank of Taiwan, which specializes in providing credit to the real-estate and agricultural sectors, to help young farmers lease land to develop businesses.
In order to expand arable land, the government plans to encourage landowners to lease 30,000 hectares of fallow farm land, Chen said, adding that greater supply is expected to attract more than 1,000 new entrants into the sector.
Chen said that income will be a critical factor in attracting young people, adding that “professional agricultural households” make an average of NT$1.31 million (US$41,117) per year, greater than the nation’s average family income.
The nation’s average household income last year was NT$1.17 million, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data showed.
There are 123,000 “professional agricultural households” — families that make a living exclusively from agriculture — out of 780,000 agricultural households nationwide, council data showed.
About 252,000 households whose primary source of income is agriculture have an an average annual income of NT$1.2 million, which is also greater than the national household income average, the data showed.
“Professional agricultural households” and those whose income is primarily generated from agriculture have seen their hard work pay off, Chen said, adding that their relatively high income could serve as an incentive to make the sector more appealing to young people.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai