Reform of Public Governance in Agricultural Policy in Taiwan: The Case of Guaranteed-Rice Price Purchasing

• Main Authors: Shu-Juan Huang, 黃叔娟
• Other Authors: Kuei-Tien Chou
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/nr6z64

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國家發展研究所 === 107 === Featuring a small-scale farming style, Taiwan did not abrogate the guaranteed-rice price purchasing system even after participating in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002. Unlike Japan and South Korea, one such price support policy for paddy rice has been implementing for 45 years and getting more important recently. Taiwan Farmers’ Associations have been multi-functional since the Japanese Colonial Period. After the Second World War, KMT (Kuomintang) government moved to Taiwan, and began manipulating the operation of these associations. In 1974, the “Farmers’ Association Act” was amended to abolish the paid-in-capital system, and start the guaranteed-rice price purchasing system instead. Since then, Taiwan Farmers’ Associations, with political, economic, social, educational, technical and financial functions, became a unique organization serving the politics. The era of “network governance” between Taiwan Farmers’ Associations and the KMT government started. The guaranteed-rice price purchasing system has been implemented by the township-level farmers’ associations to maintain rice farmers’ income. Equipped with the authority and financial support, Taiwan Farmers’ Associations were well protected by political networks, in which they exchange personal relations with the rice farmers to reinforce the control by the KMT government. In return, rice farmers took advantage of these relational networks to influence the policy-making. Consequently, Taiwan Farmers’ Associations failed to operate as an independent enterprise, which further led to the persistence of the guaranteed-rice price purchasing system incompatible with Taiwan’s commitment to the WTO to withdraw the price subsidies. Recent attempts of the government to use “network governance” for complicated public issues, require prior understanding of the background and essence of the policy-making and implementation. The present study seeks to employ the framework of “network governance” to unravel the dimensions of internal governance of Taiwan Farmers’ Associations, as well as analyze the network governance among the farmers, the government, and Taiwan Farmers’ Associations, in an attempt to enrich the research of the agricultural policy. Research results should offer a solution to improving the governance structure of the agricultural policy, in the hope of constructing a favorable environment and infrastructure for the agriculture, rural development and farmers, thus paving the way for the young people to dedicate themselves to the agricultural industry and to serving Taiwan Farmers’ Associations.