The era of primary processing for small farmers is officially coming! Under the jurisdiction of the Council of Agriculture, obtaining a "workshop registration certificate" is equivalent to "factory registration"

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In order to promote the unified management of agricultural products from production to primary processing, the Council of Agriculture amended the Law on the production and Verification Management of Agricultural products to bring the primary processing of agricultural products under its jurisdiction. In the future, those who use domestic traceable agricultural products as raw materials, engage in drying, crushing, grinding and roasting, or those who have obtained production and marketing experience processing verification or organic processing verification can apply for registration of "primary processing plant of agricultural products". The agricultural side serves as the competent authority to meet the processing needs of small-scale small farmers with relatively simple processing formats. At present, the draft amendment is in advance, and the revision of the mother law and related sub-laws is expected to be completed by June next year.

Small knowledge: the food factories under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economic Affairs are relatively large, called "factories"; the Council of Agriculture has put forward the "measures for the Management of Primary processing plants for Agricultural products", which will bring those who are small in scale and meet specific conditions under the jurisdiction of the Council of Agriculture, using the name "workshop".

Applicable processing methods and items (form provided / Council of Agriculture)

You Chun-Jen, head of the Transportation and Marketing processing Section of the Agriculture and Food Department, said that the risk assessment team will use "water activity" and "pH value" as the two major parameters to distinguish the risk of food, and open up small farmers to carry out processed items of "low-risk food."

Knowledge: the US Food and Drug Administration takes "water activity" and "pH value" as the two major parameters to distinguish the risk of food. "water activity above 0.85" and" pH above 4.6" are high-risk foods.

Committee of Agriculture: it is expected to increase the annual processing capacity of agricultural products by 75,000 metric tons.

You pointed out that the revision of the law is expected to promote the development of 500 primary agricultural processing plants, increase the output value by about 2 billion yuan, and increase the annual processing capacity of agricultural products by 70 5000 metric tons. However, why are the jams and pickles that belong to the bulk items of small farmers' processed products not included in the list that was first opened this time? On the other hand, he explained that because the process and preservation methods are different, and it is difficult to control variables, it is necessary to conduct a case evaluation, but he stressed that as long as those who have obtained production and marketing experience processing verification or organic processing verification, because they have passed third-party verification and risk assessment, they are all on the list of applicable objects, and the items of processed products are not limited to these four categories.

The draft amendment is expected to be sent to the Executive Yuan in December.

Chen Jizhong stressed that after the establishment of a whip management model for the primary processing of agricultural products next year, the "Department of Agricultural products Safety and Marketing" will be responsible for issuing registration documents and numbers, so that the Council of Agriculture will control producer data, farm registration, and commodity tracking, hoping to strengthen the safety and stabilize the production and marketing of agricultural products.

The draft amendment to Article 7 of the Law on the Management of Agricultural products production and Certification, as the mother law, is being announced in advance and is expected to be sent to the political Yuan by the end of December, hoping to complete the amendment in the next session of the Legislative Yuan. Chen said that there are still three to six months to go before it is submitted to the Legislative Yuan for examination. During this period, the Council of Agriculture will hold symposiums in various places to explain, and will also allow relevant measures to be put in place as soon as possible.

Xie Qianyou: it is recommended to formulate detailed operation instructions for different processed items.

Xie Jieyou, founder of the good Food Machine, which has long been concerned about the issue of small-scale peasant processing, responded: "the general direction is right, but the implementation method still needs to be revised and re-studied." He said that "risk assessment" should not only look at the characteristics of the item itself, processing environment, output, circulation patterns, economic behavior and other factors will affect the value at risk.

Xie said that Taiwan's climate is hot and humid, and once cereals are ground into powder and the area of contact with the air is greatly increased, the probability of mildew is also greatly increased. If the average farmer's processing environment lacks humidity and air pressure control, the risk will not be lower than the high candy sauce cooked by ordinary farmers, and some cereal even have dust explosion concerns. However, in the draft "Grinding" is included in one of the four priority processing items, while jam products need to apply for case risk assessment. "the methodology of risk assessment in the whole draft has yet to be confirmed."

Xie points out that in addition to product characteristics, production and sales patterns also need to be considered from the perspective of risk assessment. For example, farmers A make hundreds or even thousands of bottles of jam on their farms and sell them to strange consumers in the mainstream market through the Internet. Farmers B adopt a reservation system on the farm and limit the amount of milled millet flour to farmers' bazaars every week for regular customers in the market. the former is close to the economic behavior of the general mainstream market, while the latter belongs to vitamin economic behavior, so the former is in terms of output, circulation patterns and potential consumption types. Will be at greater risk than the latter.

He suggested that detailed measures should be formulated for the hierarchical management of laws and regulations, especially in the principle of health and safety, so that producers and auditors can follow, and detailed operation instructions should be drawn up according to the types of different processed products, so that management can be put on track, help farmers ensure food safety in home-made processed products, and win trust in the market.

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