News--Welcome to National Chiayi University

　　In response to the declining birthrate, population ageing in rural areas, and labor shortages, intelligent agriculture has been implemented in Taiwan three years ago. National Chiayi University was founded in 1919 as Kagi Agricultural and Forestry School, the country’s first agricultural and forestry school committed to training agricultural and forestry professionals. Now, it has evolved into a comprehensive university recognized by its history and scale in the Yunlin-Chiayi-Tainan region. Since Japan and Taiwan share similar goals in facilitating intelligent agriculture, the NCYU delegation featuring agricultural experts and professors led by President Chyung Ay arrived in Japan to carry out visits and technical exchanges with a focus on intelligent agriculture.

　　One of the major visiting sites, Next-Generation Greenhouse in Tochigi Prefecture yields an annual harvest of up to 50 tons of small tomatoes per 0.1 hectare, as opposed to only six tons in Taiwan. This new technology is worth emulating and being applied to the agricultural production in Taiwan. Nakamura, Chairperson of Hiro Farm in Saitama Prefecture, has more than twenty years’ experience in farm chemicals and machinery. He began dedicating himselve to strawberry production three years ago, and now grows 48 varieties of strawberry. He increases quality and yields by regulating growing seasons with energy-saving greenhouses, and regulating and controling environmental conditions and nutrients. Founded just last year by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) set up the agricalture data plarform WAGRI earlier this year. The platform aims to integrate data of agricultural production (covering soil, geography, climate, environment, production, marketing, etc.) from the government, academia, and industry as the foundation for developing intelligent agriculture. There is a similar team at NCYU devoted to developing techniques in the field.

　　Also noteworthy was that the delegation conducted exchanges with the intelligent agriculture team of University of Tsukuba on agriculture drones and image recognition technology on June 20th. On the same day, the delegation, on behalf of NCYU Teachers College, signed a memorandum of academic cooperation with the College of Humanities, University of Tsukuba. To welcome the NCYU delegation, University of Tsukuba raised the national flag of the Republic of China, which was especially meaningful in view of Taiwan’s status quo in international cooperation.

　　NCYU President Chyung Ay indicated that University of Tsukuba and NCYU shared similar historical background. University of Tsukuba was established due to the relocation of its antecedent, the Tokyo University of Education, to the Tsukuba area, and now has become one of the leading comprehensive universities in Japan. The objective of the visit was to facilitate collaboration between NCYU and University of Tsukuba on agricultural and biological studies in the future. University of Tsukuba has produced three Nobel Prize winners, and the example they set is one that may well be emulated by NCYU.