With support from the Council of Agriculture, NPUST has established a “Value-Added Agriculture Product Sampling Center” to conduct a variety trial processing operations, including drying, crushing, grinding, roasting, and extrusion, to add value to agricultural products grown in the Kaohsiung and Pingtung area. Work at the center will focus on prototyping commercial processing operations while promoting hygienic food-safe practices that can extend the shelf-life of agricultural products and help the economies of rural villages.
On November 19th, an opening ceremony was held for the center in front of the NPUST Food Processing Plant. Many government and university representatives were present for the occasion, including Dennis Wang, director general of the Department of Science and Technology from Council of Agriculture; Chih-wang Yao, deputy director of the COA’s Agriculture and Food Agency; Shun-fa Tai, director of the COA Kaohsiung District Agricultural Improvement Station; Jianbin Chen, dean of the Agricultural Technology Research Institute; Chin-lung Chang, president of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Distinguished Professor Chang-Wei Hsieh of National Chung Hsing University; Wen-Ling Shih, secretary general of NPUST; Jue-Liang Hsu, dean of the NPUST College of Agriculture; and Jenshinn Lin, Director of the Department of Food Science.
In his speech, Director General Dennis Wang said “the Council of Agriculture attaches great importance to the Value-Added Agriculture Product Sampling Center. The sampling center’s science and research sections are divided into the science and technology division, which is overseen by our department and the administrative division, which receives guidance and certification from the Agriculture and Food Agency. Today, NPUST has become the home of Taiwan’s 16th sampling center. And with the university’s strong research and development capabilities, primary processing techniques will be further advanced, value will be added to agricultural products, and the expertise and features of the sampling center will be brought into full play.”
NPUST President Chin-Lung Chang said “Taiwan’s fruit is world renowned. In addition to excellent research, our farmers have amazing production techniques—producing high quality produce at very high yields. And so, the value added through subsequent processing is considerably important. For these reasons, today we have established the “Value-Added Agriculture Product Sampling Center”, so that before farmers begin processing their products, they can have access to sampling, trial mass productions, technical matchmaking and other services.” Chang added that he “hopes the center will help the value of agriculture products reach new highs so that farmers will have more diverse economic opportunities and Taiwan’s agriculture industry will be able to shine on the world stage.”
