我國早年採取「以農業培養工業」的政策,靠著眾多勤奮廉價的農業勞動力,農業成功地帶動了工商業蓬勃發展。而自1970年代農業逐漸轉型後,需大量勞動力的農業活動已漸被農業科技工具取代。我國正式的農業教育體系雖不斷地培育出大量的人力,但高學歷者真正投入農業的相當有限,實際務農者則又多非農學背景需要再加以培訓。加入WTO國際化帶來的影響,益使小農型態經營不易,嚴重衝擊我國農業人力資源的發展。人力資源乃最重要的生產要素。進入知識經濟時代,創新為經濟發展的趨動力。我國必須加強農業科技智財之創造、保護、管理及運用以增進農業技術之附加價值;農業的經營模式不斷地演進。農民所需的知識與技能亦日新月異而必須持續地與日俱進,故對於農業人才的培育應著重於擴充農業科技知識、提升農企業經營管理能力、活用人力資源培植「知識型農業」,以期提升我國農業的國際競爭力。
Taiwan used to take the policy of ”developing industry to foster agriculture.” With intelligent and cheap agricultural labour resources, agricultural sector has successfully been developed. Since the 1970s, the previously labour intensive agriculture has been transformed, and relied heavily on agricultural technology. Formal agriculture education has continually cultivated numerous agricultural capitals but with limited inputs into agriculture industry. Farmers usually did not take much formal agriculture-related education and need more professional training. The influence of WTO has made small-agriculture economy hard to survive in and severely impacted the development of human resources in Taiwan's agriculture. Human resource is the most important producing factor. In the knowledge-economy era, innovation has become the driving force of economic development. Taiwan must strengthen the innovation, protection, management and application of intellectural property rights on agricultural technology to increase values of agricultural technology and gradually improving agricultural business model. The knowledge and skills farmers need to be upgraded; therefore, the government should focus on expanding technology knowledge, improving business management ability, putting to good use of human resources to cultivate knowledge-agriculture to promote Taiwan's international agricultural competiveness.