Mexican farming communities on Tuesday accused German auto giant Volkswagen AG of “arbitrarily” provoking a drought in the central state of Puebla to protect its newly manufactured cars from hail.
Volkswagen, which has a major plant in Puebla, has been using “hail cannons” — sonic devices that purport to disrupt the formation of hail in the atmosphere — to disperse storm clouds menacing the thousands of new cars parked on its lots.
However, farmers in Cuautlancingo, the rural municipality where the plant is, say the controversial technique is causing a drought that has made them lose 2,000 hectares of crops.
Photo: Bloomberg
Scientists are skeptical over whether hail cannons actually work, but local farmers say the cannons work so well they have dispersed not only hail storms, but all precipitation since May — what was supposed to be the start of the rainy season.
The farmers are reportedly seeking more than 70 million pesos (nearly US$4 million) in compensation from the automaker.
Volkswagen tried to defuse the conflict this week by announcing it was taking the cannons off automatic mode and would only fire them when potential hailstorms approached.
It also pledged to invest in protective mesh to serve as its first line of defense against hail.
However, that only added to the fury of local farmers and officials who have been protesting against the automaker.
“It is unacceptable that they continue using this device, even in manual mode. They are not respecting their neighbors’ request to definitively stop using hail cannons. They are acting arbitrarily,” said Rafael Ramirez, the top local environmental official.
“The company can take other measures to protect its cars, but people here can’t live off anything but their land,” he said.
“Volkswagen claims to be an environmentally friendly company, but they’re not showing it,” he added.
Gerardo Perez, a leader of the protesting farmers, said the hail cannons are “affecting the Earth’s cycles.”
When they emit their sonic booms, “the sky literally clears and it simply doesn’t rain,” he said.
It is not the first environmental controversy for the car maker, which is still dealing with the fallout of an emissions cheating scandal that erupted in 2015.
Volkswagen Mexico officials did not immediately answer requests for comment. The company has responded in the past that it has all necessary permits from Puebla state officials to operate the devices.
Volkswagen launched operations in Mexico in 1965.
The Puebla plant is its largest in the world outside Germany.
It produces more than 450,000 vehicles a year and operates around the clock, employing about 15,000 people.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS