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.
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