The Agricultural Finance Act was announced on July 23, 2003, and formally enacted by the Executive Yuan on January 30, 2004. The Agricultural Finance Act is intended to strengthen the constitutions of farmers' and fishermen's association credit departments and maintain financial order and the rights of farmers and fishermen. The COA Bureau of Agricultural Finance was likewise established on January 30, 2004. Eleven of the Agricultural Finance Act's subsidiary regulations were promulgated on January 28, 2004. The COA is committed to gradually and progressively reforming the agricultural finance system, putting the credit organizations of farmers' and fishermen's associations on a sound footing, strengthening assistance to farmers' and fishermen's association credit departments, and ensuring that farmers and fishermen can obtain convenient financing.

The COA has implemented a stimulus plan seeking to improve the management of farmers' and fishermen's associations and upgrade their economic, professional, and service functions. After the COA provided full-scale assistance to 36 farmers' and fishermen's associations whose credit departments had been taken over, their sales enjoyed growth of 12% over 2002. The COA drafted revisions to the Farmers' and Fishermen's Association Act and established mechanisms for the associations' voluntary merger. The COA will continue use legal and institutional measures to encourage farmers' and fishermen's associations to merge with each other and thereby strengthen their competitiveness, accelerating their transformation and development.

The COA performed the entry, integration, and assessment of data from 23 special municipality and county (city) government production-marketing teams. The resulting information will serve to guide assistance and decision-making work. The COA had compiled information on 6,441 production-marketing teams and 121,826 team members as of the end of 2003. In 2003, the COA also helped 601 production-marketing teams improve their meeting place facilities; besides use in meetings and training, etc., the improved facilities boosted team solidarity and provided venues for exhibitions and interpretive education, etc. A total of 3,000 persons attended 58 training sessions, technical discussions, and workshops held for production-marketing teams by the COA; these events helped production-marketing teams to improve their production technology, marketing, management, computerization, and crisis response ability.

To ease the impact of trade deregulation on farmers' livelihoods and relieve the social problems caused by an aging rural population, the COA continued to strengthen the life care system for rural residents. The COA helped town and township farmers' associations hold 2,035 home economics and living classes, at which 61,128 association members learned about nutrition and health care, aging at home and aging with dignity, taking care of one's parents, and how to improve household finances. These classes encouraged practical learning and created awareness of the concepts of healthy aging, aging at home, and parent care. In addition, 186 town and township farmers' associations held 236 life improvement classes for the electronic document; the 14,137 elderly rural residents who attended these classes received tips on health care, recreation, and adapting to aging. The classes helped the elderly stay healthy and improved their quality of life and adaptation ability. The COA helped 24 town and township farmers' associations in areas lacking long-term care resources to each establish their own community life care center, and provided training to 540 volunteers; the community life care centers serve 14,819 rural families by providing a variety of care and support functions. The COA provided assistance and funds to 330 farming women for the establishment of sideline occupations such as the making of local crafts, the processing of local agricultural products, the provision of homemaking services, and the preparation of local foods; this program enhanced women's occupational skills and improved farm household income.

To care for and improve the quality of life of elderly farmers and fishermen, in accordance with the Provisional Elderly Farmer Welfare Subsidy Statute, the COA provides NT$3,000 monthly subsidies to those farmers and fishermen who are at least 65 years of age and possess the necessary qualifications. According to statistics, a total of more than 870,000 farmers and fishermen received approximately NT$166.76 billion in welfare subsidies from June 1995 to December 2003. The COA revised the Provisional Elderly Farmer Welfare Subsidy Statute in 2003 to provide even sturdier economic safeguards for elderly farmers; the revised Statute increased subsidies to NT$4,000 per month when it was implemented in January 2004, strengthening care for elderly farmers and fishermen.

The COA drafted the Procedural Guidelines for Scholarship Applications by the Children of Farmers and Fishermen in August 2003 in an effort to encourage farmers' and fishermen's children to study. The Guidelines provide for scholarships for those children of farmers and fishermen who attend university (including the final two years at five-year colleges) or senior high school/vocational senior high school (including the first three years at five-year colleges); the scholarships are in the amount of NT$5,000 per semester for university students and NT$3,000 per semester for senior high school students. A total of 17,826 persons were granted NT$77.24 million in scholarships in 2003.

The COA has improved agricultural natural disaster aid standards in an effort to ease the losses of farmers and fishermen caused by natural disasters. The annual interest rate on emergency loans was reduced to 1.5% starting on February 1, 2003, and cash assistance standards were similarly adjusted from September 1 of the same year. Under the new system, the amount of cash assistance given for such crop as rice, fruit, and flowers is 1.5 times the previous amount. The government provided a total of NT$1.01 billion in aid, cash assistance, and loan interest subsidies in 2003 to roughly 25,000 farmers and fishermen affected by Typhoon Dujuan, drought, and other natural disasters. An additional NT$285 million in low-interest loans was provided.

The government provides policy-type agricultural loans for the purpose caring for the nation's farmers and fishermen and promoting industrial development. The uses of these loans include the purchase of farmland and farming/fishing equipment, rural youths' business startups, improvements to the efficiency of hog raisers and dairy farmers, improvement of the economic functions of farmers' and fishermen's associations, and agricultural natural disaster relief. Approximately NT$4.2 billion in loans was given out in 2003 to 3,224 recipients. A cumulative total of NT$144,924 million in loans was given to 334,057 recipients from 1973 to the end of 2003. The outstanding balance of agricultural loans was NT$16,393 million as of the end of 2003. Maximum loan period is 20 years. Apart from the annual interest rate for home improvement loans, which was reduced from 2.625% to 2.125%, the annual interest rate for all other types of loans is either 2.5% or 2.0%.