Taiwan’s internship program for young Filipino farmers will open application for another batch in June, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Manila announced Saturday.

TECO said the applications received from the previous Filipino Young Farmer Internship Program in Taiwan (FYFIPT) are “currently under review.”

The FYFIPT is a joint effort of TECO and the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in collaboration with the Philippine Agricultural Training Institute of the Department of Agriculture (DA-ATI) since 2021.

The program aims to empower young Filipino farmers to become farmer leaders and agricultural entrepreneurs by intensive exposures to unlearn, learn, and re-learn techniques, technologies, and strategies through internships in Taiwan.

To date, a total of 126 young farmers from the Philippines are training under the FYFIPT and have been accommodated by more than 30 farms in Taiwan for an 11-month hands-on internship.

Interns were assigned to different host farms according to their preference of commodity, such as rice, fruits, vegetables, dairy, swine, poultry, mushroom, and aquaculture.

FYFIP participants are awarded a PHP50,000 grant by DA-ATI upon their completion of the program to assist their re-entry into the agricultural sectors in the Philippines.

This year, TECO said, Taiwan would increase the internship vacancies from 50 to 100 to accommodate the increasing Filipino applicants.

“I am glad to see many young faces who are interested in agriculture. I encourage the students who are interested in FYFIPT to apply for internship opportunity,” TECO Philippines Representative Wallace Chow said.

“This year, Taiwan government provides FYFIPT internship opportunities to 100 Filipino young farmers.”

Apart from the FYFIPT, Taiwan also provides various scholarships to interested Filipinos students, such as the Taiwan International Cooperation & Development Fund Scholarship, the Taiwan Ministry of Education Scholarship, and the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship for Mandarin language course.

Application for the ICDF scholarship is open until March 15 while submission for the rest is until April 30. (PNA)