Agriculture 4.0 aid: The key to domestic and foreign policy fusion for Taiwan

14 July 2021

The proliferation of Agriculture 4.0 technologies is changing the way agriculture is implemented globally and creating new opportunities to refocus agricultural aid towards human capital development — a shift that creates a strategic opportunity for Taiwan.

Through its agricultural aid program, which started with its first mission to Vietnam in 1959, Taiwan can and should integrate its 5+2 Innovative Industries Plan and New Southbound Policy through a bold program of industrial training. This program would include not only the use of groundbreaking technologies to overcome traditional problems in agriculture like nutrient depletion, pest control and crop monitoring, but also develop the capacity to create secondary products that have a higher value in both international markets and the localities that produce them. In doing so, Taiwan could lead in breaking the cycle of agricultural aid dependency that is particularly common in the Global South and gain important geopolitical traction in doing so.

This strategy, which focuses on growing capacity, already has support in the Taiwanese government, as a Member of the Legislative Yuan Chuang Jui-Hsiung (莊瑞雄) told the author when asked about expanding aid programs, “increased venture capital, increased business cooperation, and increased agricultural education both in Taiwan and abroad, are all things we can partner on”. By assisting regional economic partner nations like Papua New Guinea, as well as the 18 countries represented in the NSP to increase the value-added of their agricultural products (through capacity building for the manufacture of secondary agricultural goods, establishing a Protected Designation of Origin schemes as has been done in Europe, and generally reducing labour costs through increased efficiency), Taiwan is strengthening its economic ties and reducing regional dependence on China and the United States.

Current agricultural aid programs often sustain a core-periphery dynamic, wherein core countries produce capital and knowledge-intensive high-value products, and the periphery produces labour heavy low-value products. Here, three drivers of agricultural development are the key to breaking a core-periphery dynamic: investment, education, and cooperation. By seizing the opportunity to contribute to regional development, Taiwan gains further diplomatic exposure as a force for good in the region and develops its status as not just a leader in agricultural development but also a regional stakeholder.

What is Taiwan already doing?

The NSP does provide a solid framework for promoting Agriculture 4.0, but Taiwan has been working effectively in other parts of the Indo-Pacific as well. Although Papua New Guinea is not a New Southbound Policy country, its agricultural situation is reflective of the region, with similar climatic conditions and traditional agricultural products as Taiwan. On agricultural cooperation between Taiwan and PNG, Papua New Guinean Trade Representative to Taiwan, Rep. Tommy Kambu Kunji told this author that “cooperation has been a very productive and successful one in many ways, but one that has not received the exposure, publicity and applause it deserves due to undue foreign political influences”. When asked about the most important aspect of agricultural aid, Rep. Kunji said “education should precede the import of technology, followed by investment in agriculture for creation of market-leading products and establishment of supply chains”.

By training a generation of farmers that is highly literate in data collection and sharing, as well as transitioning from purely agricultural production to a model that creates competitive value-added products, Taiwan can be a first mover in reforming a pattern of aid dependency — and gain invaluable diplomatic goodwill in doing so.

There is then, a road map for success: strengthening agriculture through traditional aid schemes that include seed selection and development of disease-resistant strains, followed up with education in new labour-saving technologies such as mapping and fertiliser disbursement drones and the manufacture of secondary products such as vegetable oils. Completing the “aid-chain” in this way will create a dynamic, self-sustaining system that will strengthen the interdependence of the economies of partner nations, thus helping to reduce their susceptibility to Chinese economic coercion and influence.

Taiwan is already working to promote smart agriculture. The country’s main organ for international aid, the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), has recently cooperated with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture Research (CIAT) in the launch of an Agriculture 4.0 platform for phones that assists farmers with planting advice, customised data on local fertility of the soil and pest control. These multilateral partnerships not only leverage Taiwan’s expertise in agricultural technology with international organisations that have wider influence and resources but also strengthen its position in the international system. Cooperation surrounding this project also lays the groundwork for further integration of technology in localities to facilitate the production and marketing of secondary goods that can provide a greater economic benefit to underdeveloped regions. Data collection would allow farmers in rural Tuvalu, for example, to get analysis and insights from agricultural scientists in Taiwan, rotate their crops more effectively, or collectively sell their produce with other regional farms, helping farmers to cut out middlemen. This will eventually lead to positive externalities in data collection, communication between farmers, disaster relief, and integrated supply chains. In catalyzing the use of Agriculture 4.0 technologies, Taiwan could gain grassroots support from foreign farmers, an influential constituency in many countries.

Taiwan’s expertise in innovative agriculture is already being used to increase productivity in NSP countries. The ICDF is currently working in Thailand on a project to strengthen the research and development capabilities of farmers (through techniques like cross-breeding and seed selection), as well as the competitiveness of their products (through the introduction and adaptation of new varieties of produce). While these education initiatives have a fundamental role in making agriculture more climate-friendly, efficient, and productive — they could be expanded upon by being paired with education. For example, training on how to manufacture, market, and sell agricultural goods internationally, or how to use Agriculture 4.0 technologies to reduce the burden of labour on farmers, would be particularly strong programs for young farmers.

Missed opportunities?

These are not new ideas — the ICDF organised the Asia-Pacific Agricultural Development and Business Opportunity Matching Forum in 2019. The goal of the forum was to connect representatives from eight NSP countries to Taiwanese manufacturers to develop the agricultural industry in partner countries and provide Taiwanese businesses with access to markets that will be revolutionised by Agriculture 4.0 technologies. However laudable this forum was, there were some missed opportunities. The first was that it needed to be followed up on — this forum has not reoccurred since 2019, an important missed opportunity to follow up on potential maintenance sales, farmer suggestions after having field-tested systems, and expanding cooperation between businesses.

Further opportunities were missed in not expanding the size and scope of the forum — while 38 members of academia, government, and industry is a laudable achievement — these forums should be focused on encouraging local small and medium-scale farmers participation. During our interview Rep. Kunji said, most of the younger generation in PNG is moving towards cities rather than farming, but “those that remain in the villages go into subsistence farming and other cash crops like coffee, cocoa, coconut, and vanilla”. To radically develop the economic output of agriculture as well as expand the opportunity for Taiwanese agricultural technology to proliferate (be it new plant strains, agricultural netting, aquaculture equipment, drones, etc.); Taiwan’s agriculture forums should lean into teaching agriculture and business skills that will help make small-scale farming more economically profitable, perhaps by pairing growing techniques with marketing and production training. In this way, Taiwanese businesses will be able to connect with farmers who have gained new skills in modern agriculture and manufacturing, rather than trying to market Agriculture 4.0 technologies to entire industries and nations, which is glamorous but arguably less beneficial to building local capacity.

Rep. Kunji said in our interview that the ICDF has also been influential in introducing farmers to diseases and pest resistant, high production strains of bananas, guava, watermelon, papaya, corn, and many more crops. He continued, saying that PNG needs legislation that will promote large-scale production of agricultural products while limiting the import of products that can be produced locally. While the ICDF has clearly done important work for agriculture in PNG, there is room to expand its operations in helping create business opportunities for farmers. Taiwan can support this policy prescription by providing education on how to manufacture secondary products (for example fish oil or pineapple cakes) to increase local demand as well as make products more competitive on the international market.

The time is now

Taiwan is well-positioned to radically improve the effectiveness of agricultural aid by directly linking it to investment in, education on, and deployment of Agriculture 4.0 technologies. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), the majority of farmers in this region continue to practice subsistence farming mainly due to a lack of resources that make land use more efficient. As farm plots continue to shrink, there is not a similar increase in production, efficiency, or crop value. The pairing of international efforts like the New Southbound Policy, with a domestic policy like the 5+2 Innovative Industries Plan to educate farmers on how to raise the value of their crops and providing the tools to do so, would make the ICDF’s efforts in the region more effective.

This program needs to be society-centred, not aid-centred. The ICDF and partner countries need to be targeted and consistent in vocational training and micro-investment. The ICDF and business leaders in Taiwan must not look at this as merely a short-term business opportunity for Taiwan’s budding 5+2 Innovative industries Plan — whereby the ideal outcome is expanded markets where more devices can be sold. Rather, it is a long-term investment in the geopolitical alignment of the region. If Taiwan expands and adapts an Agriculture 4.0 aid program, leading a regional “green revolution”, the geopolitical scales may still be weighed against Taiwan, but it will have gained valuable loyalty from partners that have increased economic power.

By training a generation of farmers that is highly literate in data collection and sharing, as well as transitioning from purely agricultural production to a model that creates competitive value-added products, Taiwan can be a first mover in reforming a pattern of aid dependency — and gain invaluable diplomatic goodwill in doing so. When it comes to the development, implementation, and dispersal of Agriculture 4.0 technologies, Taiwan can and should lead. Taiwan’s aid programs have a strong foundation to build from — when asked about Taiwan’s reliability as an economic partner, Rep. Kunji replied, “Taiwan is a very reliable and genuine partner”.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Maxwell S. Wappel is a Researcher at Taiwan NextGen Foundation, where he contributes to the New Southbound Policy and Taiwan’s Soft Power programs. He earned a Bachelor’s in History at the University of Maryland and is currently pursuing Chinese and American Studies at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and Johns Hopkins-SAIS. He can be found on LinkedIn @Maxwell Wappel. Image credit: Wikipedia.