Taipei, June 27 (CNA) Taiwan’s Agriculture Minister Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) said Thursday that the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) is currently in talks with the Ministry of Labor (MOL) to expand the agricultural migrant worker program and increase the number of workers from 12,000 to 20,000.

Chen made the remarks at a Legislature’s Economics Committee meeting, where he laid out the MOA’s expansion proposal.

According to Chen, a pilot program in 2019 brought in 800 agricultural migrant workers, while an MOL agreement to increase the number of such workers to 12,000 took effect in mid-June 2023.

Currently over 70 percent of this quota, or 8,505 migrant workers, have been introduced, he said, adding that the quota is expected to be fully utilized by the end of this year, therefore, the MOA hopes the MOL will approve an additional 8,000 workers to meet demand by the end of 2024.

In addition to the increase in migrant workers, Chen said the expansion proposal also includes allowing migrant workers to be hired for work in new sectors of the agricultural industry such as lawn and sprout vegetable growing, Chen said.

The ministry is also proposing revising the rule that stipulates no more than 35 percent of the workforce of farming companies with 10 or fewer employees can be migrant workers, raising it to 50 percent, he added.

According to a MOA survey in 2023, around 6 percent of households in Taiwan, where farming is the primary source of income, reported labor shortages. Central Taiwan experienced the most severe shortages, followed by southern Taiwan.

Other than bringing in migrant workers to ease the labor shortage in agriculture, the MOA also implements plans for young farmers from countries including the Philippines and Indonesia to come to Taiwan and enroll on agricultural internships.

As of today, 46 farming groups comprising 1,500 people have been established in 14 cities and counties around Taiwan, working across 5,000 farms, the MOA said.

It added that over the past decade, the agricultural workforce has continued to fall, with the average age of workers gradually increasing. In 2014, 548,000 people were employed in agriculture with an average age of 52.6 years. By 2023, the agricultural workforce had decreased to 509,000 people, with the average age increasing to 53.5.