Economic aspects of agricultural and reform on the island of Taiwan

Graduation date: 1966Beginning with 1949, Taiwan carried out a series of land reforms\ud which have now been mostly completed.\ud When the island was returned to China in 1945, tenancy was a\ud serious problem as it was on the China mainland. Nearly half of its\ud farm land was under tenancy and some tenants paid to landlords as\ud much as 70 percent of their annual crop as rent and had no security of\ud tenure. Their income was extremely low and their life difficult.\ud The land reform program was carried out in three phases. The\ud first phase was carried out in 1949. The program compulsorily reduced\ud farm rental rates in Taiwan from an average of 50 percent to\ud a uniform rate of 37.5 percent of the annual crop yield. Many tenant\ud families were benefited. The second phase began in 1952. By the\ud end of 1961, 94, 000 hectares of public owned land had been sold by\ud the Government to poor farmers at a price of 2.5 times its annual\ud crop yield. Under this program 165,443 tenant families had acquired land ownership by the end of 1961. The third phase was started in\ud 1953. The Government started to purchase all private land holdings\ud exceeding three hectares of paddy field for resale to their tenant\ud cultivators. The tenant purchasers paid 2.5 times the annual crop\ud yield to the Government in twenty semi-annual installments over a\ud period of ten years. By the end of 1961, 139, 249 hectares, or nearly\ud 60 percent of the total private tenanted lands were purchased by the\ud Government and resold to tenant families who have thus become independent\ud owner-operators.\ud The land reform program has helped improve the general social\ud and economic conditions in Taiwan. The most important and significant\ud results are increased food production and improvement in\ud farmers' livelihood.\ud Although the program has contributed significantly to rural\ud security and economic development in Taiwan, there remain some\ud difficult problems to which some effective answers must be found.\ud The tasks include: (1) protection of new owner-farmers;\ud (2) exchange and consolidation of small plots of land; (3) promotion\ud of farmers' savings; (4) more intensive farming; (5) industrialization\ud and curbing the growing population; (6) abandonment of a passive and\ud conservative concept; (7) creation of commercial farms; (8) maintaining\ud a stable and growing economy after the end of American economic\ud aid