What do you want the "good countryside" to look like? How can the experience of rural development in the European Union, Japan and South Korea inspire Taiwan?

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The Taiwan Rural Society and the Department of Bio-Industrial Communication and Development of National Taiwan University held a series of international academic seminars on the new return to agriculture movement, inviting Britain, Japan and Korea to share their experiences in rural reform to promote rural policy exchange. Wang Junhao, chairman of the Taiwan Rural Society, said at the meeting on the 3rd that in order to think about how to promote rural development, he hoped to open a new page in Taiwan's future rural development by drawing on the EU rural development policy and the rural experience of Japan and South Korea.

Lin Congxian, chairman of the Council of Agriculture, said that in the future, the policy stance will be different from urban development thinking to formulate more effective methods of rural development. At the same time, a comprehensive rural social survey has been launched, not only to conduct surveys, but also to sort out the problems faced by rural areas and formulate effective policies. "Is the countryside really a problem? This is the view of Taiwan's development thinking in the past. In the face of Taiwan's social changes, is the countryside a good solution instead?" He stressed that rural areas are an important part of Taiwan's social transformation into a new generation, and he hoped that all walks of life would jointly paint an image of Taiwan's new countryside.

South Korean farmers surnamed Jin who actually returned to agriculture (Photo/Liu Yixin)

Chen Jieting: We should not only talk about rural areas from agriculture, but also establish support systems

"After returning home, what are we going to do in this place?" Chen Jieting, associate researcher of the Agricultural Policy Research Center of the Academy of Agricultural Science and Technology, said that now people no longer only think about returning home from agriculture. The demand for rural agricultural labor force is not as high as before. At this time, encourage them to return to agriculture. What do these people want to do?

We should not only talk about the countryside from agriculture. What are the needs of people inside and outside the countryside for rural life? Is it possible to be satisfied? Japan has a consulting platform to provide assistance, but what about Taiwan? He stressed that support systems must be given to practitioners returning to their hometowns, including technical support from the industrial side, emotional support to integrate the feelings of the returnees, and knowledge system support to enable the returnees to access traditional grass-roots knowledge.

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