Expand machinery use to make vegetable growing more efficient: COA

Expand machinery use to make vegetable growing more efficient: COA

2023-06-13

Mechanization is being touted as the solution to labor problems for Yunlin’s agricultural industry. At a recent demo, machines that plant seedlings in the ground were shown off, in an effort to promote the spread of heavy machinery. The Council of Agriculture minister and local lawmakers were on hand to endorse a change in farming practices. Yunlin is Taiwan’s top vegetable producing county. It’s struggling with major labor shortages and farmers say more use of machinery could make their work easier and faster.

This is an automatic seedling planter. As it moves down the field, the seedlings are deposited neatly in the ground. It’s operated by a single farmer, who gets the whole field of 1,000 square meters planted in just an hour.

Farmer
All the workers in our village who plant for us are grandmas in their seventies and eighties. So, with this machine, on the one hand we can control the spacing better, and on the other hand it’s easy and convenient and we can use the time we save for other things.

It used to take hours of toiling to get all those seedlings into the soil. A field this size would take four people working for four or five hours. But as the government promotes the mechanization of these tasks, planting and harvesting machinery is making farmwork easier and reducing the need for labor.

Chen Chi-chung
Council of Agriculture minister
This demonstration was everything from preparing the soil and preparing the planting beds to field management and finally harvesting. Those four steps can all be automated.

Liu Chien-kuo
DPP lawmaker
Mechanization as a good way to supplement labor can definitely make Taiwanese agriculture more competitive, especially for the vegetable growers of Yunlin, the largest vegetable producing region in the country. It’s certainly helpful for all of us farmers.

Yunlin is the most important region for vegetable production in Taiwan. As it grapples with the serious labor shortage of recent years, it’s looking toward mechanization to make agriculture more efficient.