Journal of Reviews on Global Economics, 2018, 7, 269-279 269 E-ISSN: 1929-7092/18 © 2018 Lifescience Global Evaluation Indicators and Development Strategies of Agricultural Revitalization for Rural Rejuvenation Biing-Wen Huang and Yu-Chen Yang * Department of Applied Economics, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan Abstract: The goal of rural rejuvenation is to establish newly regenerated rural villages via economic development and beautification. However, it is necessary to engage agriculture in rural areas as a basis to reach the goal. In order to effectively promote agricultural development, the objective of this study is to develop the related indicators as evaluation criteria. A modified Delphi method is applied to develop the questionnaire. The indicators are divided into two categories: requirement and implementation evaluation indicators. This implies indicators in both sides should be considered simultaneously for effectively promoting agricultural development. There are four dimensions, consisting of twelve items, which are included in requirement indicators. The four dimensions are to (1) activate agricultural production (2) to promote agricultural marketing (3) to construct the distinguishing features of rural life and culture, and(4) to develop leisure agriculture and rural village experiences. The implementation indicators are comprised of five dimensions including 21 items. The five dimensions are (1) community factors (2) human resource factors (3) local resource surveys (4) environmental and facilities planning, and (5) government subsidies and guidance. To determine the relative importance sequence of the target evaluation indicators, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) is applied to calculate the weight for each item. Then, the quality function development method (QFD) is adopted to explore the relative importance sequence of implementing indicators. Based upon the important items of evaluation indicators, this study proposes the development strategies recommended for the agricultural authority. Keywords: Rural rejuvenation, agricultural revitalization, evaluation indicators, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, quality function development method. 1. INTRODUCTION Rural villages in Taiwan are gradually showing signs of economic decline such as aging population, depopulation, and sluggish industry performance. In order to revitalize rural villages, the government authority promulgated The Rural Rejuvenation Act in August, 2010. According to the first article, the goal of the act is to improve the fundamental infrastructure for agricultural production, to preserve rural ecology and culture, to upgrade the quality of life, and to create a newly regenerated rural village with affluence and beauty. In order to enhancing revitalization of villages, residents of rural communities are encouraged to propose a bottom-up regeneration plan. Moreover, a fund of 150 NT billion for rural revitalization is dedicated to assist the village in reaching the goal of constructing of new rural villages, (Rural Rejuvenation Act, 2010). This fund from government is able to create a rural village’s beautiful facade in a short period of time without much of a problem. However, to maintain the appearance of a rural village depends on sustainable economic prosperity. Surface beauty 1 is not able to be *Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Applied Economics, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan; Tel: (04)22840352-314; Fax: (04)22860255; E-mail: ycyang@dragon.nchu.edu.tw 1 Surface beauty refers to facilities such as buildings without a proper management. continued without sustainable economic prosperity. Therefore, it is imperative to revitalize rural villages and improve their economic outlooks, by defining how best to increase the well-being of local residents. According to article 14 of The Rural Rejuvenation Act, the governmental authority is allowed to subsidize industrial revitalization. However, the subsidy is restricted to agriculture related industries. In other words, with agriculture as the main focus, the three dimensions of rural revitalization are production, quality of life, and ecology; relating to outputs of primary, secondary, and tertiary industrial sectors, such as agricultural products, processed agricultural products, rural life and ecology, and experiencing rural culture for example. All products are related to the agricultural industry; therefore, in order to revitalize rural villages, we have to take care of all three dimensions to integrate all related fields of rural revitalization. For example, those might include such as rural migration and manpower training (Stockdale, 2006), rural building renovations (Zavadskas and Antucheviciene, 2007), rural landscape and ecological structures (Meurk and Simon, 2000; Bonaiuto, et al., 2003), and related corporations (Zografos, 2007). Thus, to propagate rural revitalization, a bottom-up community input approach to rural rejuvenation is used to plan the future of revitalized agriculture in order to achieve the goals (Rodela, 2010). Regarding rural revitalization, we learn that agricultural revitalization in rural villages is linked to many disciplines and subjects per the literature.