Introduction
The Tainan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Ministry of Agriculture, was established in November 1901 as “Tainan ting nonghui fushu nongchang” (Tainan Subprefecture Farmers’ Association Subsidiary Farm). In 1923, it was renamed “Tainan zhouli nongshi shiyan chang” (Tainan Prefecture-Run Agricultural Experimental Farm), and following several changes to its name, finally settled on its current form on July 1, 1999. The Station is predominantly responsible for agricultural experimentation, application, and promotion in Tainan City, Chiayi County, Chiayi City, and Yunlin County, as well as managing three reservoirs, namely Zengwen Reservoir, Baihe Reservoir, and Wushantou Reservoir.
In 2016, the Station donated a collection of 1,228 items to the Archives, contents of which include mostly agricultural documents from Taiwan before 1950 as well as four maps and thirty-five photographs. Among them, 116 documents that have been designated as important were returned to the Station following their digitization and preservation. In addition to agricultural journals and reports, these archival materials contain service reports, surveys, and statistical data from agricultural experimental farms in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. These documents not only are of irreplaceable importance for the study of agricultural promotion, technological development, water resources, and plant diseases and insect pests in South Taiwan, but also leave a record of the modernization of agriculture in Taiwan during the early twentieth century under Japanese rule.
In 2016, the Station donated a collection of 1,228 items to the Archives, contents of which include mostly agricultural documents from Taiwan before 1950 as well as four maps and thirty-five photographs. Among them, 116 documents that have been designated as important were returned to the Station following their digitization and preservation. In addition to agricultural journals and reports, these archival materials contain service reports, surveys, and statistical data from agricultural experimental farms in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. These documents not only are of irreplaceable importance for the study of agricultural promotion, technological development, water resources, and plant diseases and insect pests in South Taiwan, but also leave a record of the modernization of agriculture in Taiwan during the early twentieth century under Japanese rule.