Introduction
The Tainan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Ministry of Agriculture, was established in November 1901 under Japanese colonial rule as “Tainan ting nonghui fushu nongchang” (Tainan Subprefecture Farmers’ Association Subsidiary Farm); and in 1923, it was renamed “Tainan zhouli nongshi shiyan chang” (Tainan Prefecture-Run Agricultural Experimental Farm). After the Nationalist government took control, it was renamed the “Tainan xian nongshi shiyan chang” (Tainan County Agricultural Experimental Farm) in 1946; and following several additional changes to its name, finally settled on its current form in 1968. The Station is predominantly responsible for agricultural experimentation, application, and promotion in present-day Tainan City, Chiayi County, Chiayi City, and Yunlin County, as well as managing the Zengwen, Baihe, and Wushantou reservoirs, making it the largest agricultural research and extension station in Taiwan by area.
In 2016, the Station donated a collection of 1,228 items to the Archives, fonds contents of which mostly include agricultural documents from Taiwan before 1950 as well as four maps and thirty-five photographs. Among them, 116 items that have been designated as documents of significance 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 produced during the Japanese colonial period. 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, fonds contents of which mostly include agricultural documents from Taiwan before 1950 as well as four maps and thirty-five photographs. Among them, 116 items that have been designated as documents of significance 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 produced during the Japanese colonial period. 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.