1 Finding Future Farmers: A Study on the Wandervögel Program Trainees in Taiwan

The Council of Agriculture (COA) launched series of new young farmers recruitment programs (so called the Wandervögel Camp) under the “New Agriculture Movement” umbrella in 2006. This study uses census data to inquire 329 College Wandervögel Camp trainees, and the survey was conducted from April to August, 2007. The purposes of this paper are to investigate the understanding and awareness of agricultural knowledge, attitudes towards agricultural development and farming careers, and pro-agriculture practical behaviors of the Wandervögel trainees. Further, we use structural equation model to examine the causal relationships within the agricultural KAP of future farmers. The research results found as follows: Firstly, in the KAP full model, all of the parametric estimates were at significant level (p value> 0.05), including the fitness of model itself. Secondly, the agricultural knowledge is an important antecedent variable of agricultural attitudes and practices. Lastly, the study focused only on the KAP relationship of College WC trainees; most of them have similar social- demographical characters. So we recommend that future research could apply the same structure model to compare with ordinary WC trainees. Besides, returning to the essential aim of Wandervögel programs, to foster and recruit new young farmers, it is necessary to conduct a panel study and track the changes of WC trainees, especially their willingness of farming in the future