Since 2017, an interdepartmental team of teachers and students at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) has been cooperating on talent training with Denmark’s exemplary agriculture college, Dalum Landbrugsskole. Under their joint program, 42 students from NPUST have already completed training in Denmark and returned to Taiwan. Presently, apart from 18 who are still studying and 1 who is serving in the military, the remaining 23 graduates of the course are employed by pork production companies and contributing what they have learned to the industry.
Recognizing the important contributions being made and the effectiveness of NPUST’s and Dalum’s joint operations, the BaFang Dumpling Social Welfare Charity Foundation chairperson, Shu-hsing Su, decided to lend support to the work being done. On December 22 (2022), a memorandum of understanding was signed between Bafang and NPUST at the university’s Administration Hall. NPUST president, Chin-Lung Chang, and BaFang’s executive director, Hui-Yin Hsiao, signed the agreement in the presence of Department of Animal Science director, Chi Yu, and several professors from the department. Through the agreement, a total of 2,500,000 NTD in scholarships will be allocated to students, with 500,000 NTD going out each year, over a five-year period. The money will be used to support students from the department in their travels to Denmark for training. Areas of focus will include modern slaughter technology, cutting and deboning, and processing.
NPUST President Chin-Lung Chang expressed that “following 23 years of efforts, in 2019 Taiwan finally eradicated foot and mouth disease. NPUST attaches great importance to the cultivation of managerial and disease prevention talent for the pork industry and has been working to minimize talent gaps. In recent years, the school has been learning from the Danish pork industry and using the new knowledge it has acquired to address the needs of Taiwan’s local operators. It has also been helping students develop understandings of sustainable management and animal welfare so as to gradually overcome existing challenges in Taiwan’s animal husbandry industry. Now, with the support of BaFang Social Welfare Charity Foundation, we will be better able to bring international talent into the meat production industry. This will not only be of benefit to students, but will also help with the promotion of domestic animal husbandry and the innovation and progress of the industry.”
BaFang’s executive director, Hui-Yin Hsiao, said “our chairperson, Shu-hsing Su, is very grateful to NPUST for their dedicated cultivation of domestic industry talent and she hopes that through vocational education, advanced international technical courses can be used to train the type of talent that local industries need. The BaFang Foundation encourages young students to take on challenges and learn about modern meat industry processing technology. We are grateful to the teachers for working hard to train Taiwan’s future professionals, and we hope that through industry-academic cooperation on vocational curriculum, roots can be laid for the industry and for sustainable operations.”
BaFang Dumplings is a famous dumpling franchise from Taiwan that operates locally and internationally, and their products are greatly loved in Chinese communities. Dedicated both to food safety and quality management, BaFang recognizes the heavy responsibility that academia is shouldering when it comes to talent training. By providing strong support to the university, expectations are that professional talent cultivation will expand and Taiwan’s pork industry will be able to experience continuous improvement.
