Skip to main content

The Council of Agriculture Assits Farmers’ Association to Adapt CIS to Reinvent Itself

2006-06-07

In recent years, the agriculture industry has been affected by the transformation of Taiwan’s social structure, industrial and commercial development, and the impact of free trade. Farmers’ associations are increasingly finding the needs to adapt to these changes and also have realized the importance that to regain trust of farmers and the general public. The way to obtain this is to change their positioning within the agriculture industry.

In order to achieve this, the Council of Agriculture (COA) is aggressively assisting these associations in building their own corporate identity system (CIS). The vital objective of this is to help them improve their service quality through prudent planning, enhancing their image and having a stronger internal consensus.

COA says that CIS combines modern design concepts with business management theory. It systematically redesigns the image of a business, enabling it to differentiate itself from competitors. By gaining the attention and trust of the public, the new image helps the organization increase the sales of its products and services. CIS consists of mind identity (MI), visual identity (VI) and behavior identity (BI). MI uses business philosophies and strategies created and articulated by the farmers’ association to build consensus. VI promotes and attractive image through a CIS trademark. Finally, BI boosts the perception of the trademark among members, customers, the community, and the people associated with the organization. Of Taiwan’s 303 farmers’ associations, 116 have already adopted the CIS system, and the rest are starting to do so. This effort attempts to build a new image of excellence for farmers’ associations around the island.

The COA says that like a 100-year-old shop, the farmers’ association is reinventing itself and will have a new look that would increase farmers’ confidence. The ultimate aim is to significantly enhance the association’s productivity and efficiency and increase the public’s trust in its products and services. From there, the association will acquire a broader view and can promote the domestic produced agricultural products to the international market more effectively and which was the original purpose of the establishment of the farmers’ association hundred years ago.