The dispute over Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) vice presidential candidate Su Jia-chyuan’s (蘇嘉全) farmhouse has caused much controversy over the past month, with new developments almost every day. Now there are reports that several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials also have luxurious farmhouses.
Council of Agriculture officials appeared to hew to the principle that agricultural land should be used for agricultural purposes only and accused Su of violating this principle, as if they were the guardian’s of Taiwan’s farmland.
However, now that the same allegations have been leveled against KMT officials, council officials have become strangely quiet. Given this stark contrast, one cannot help but ask whether they are really concerned about agricultural land.
Article 10 of the Agricultural Development Act (農業發展條例) states: “The delimitation or change of agricultural lands to non-agricultural purposes shall not affect the integrity of production environments and shall be subject to the prior approval of the competent authorities.”
As the authority in charge, the council is supposed to play a key role in preserving agricultural land. The question is whether it has lived up to that responsibility or has it worked with local governments and other agencies to release land for other uses whenever necessary?
Data show that the council has often adopted the second approach.
The nation’s agricultural land is shrinking by an average of more than 13,000 hectares a year, roughly the equivalent of half of Taipei City, or 500 Da-an Forest Parks.
This land is mainly re--designated urban land and many of the changes are directly related to land expropriation. Examples include the science park expansion projects in Dapu (大埔) and Wanbao (灣寶) boroughs of Miaoli County and Siangsihliao (相思寮) in Changhua County; the special district for the Taiwan High Speed Rail’s Changhua Station in Tianjhong Township (田中); and the Puyu Development Plan in Erchongpu Village (二重埔) in Hsinchu County.
With the exception of the Wanbao case, has the council rushed forward to protect agricultural land as it did in the case of Su’s farmhouse? Has it insisted that agricultural land can only be used for agricultural purposes in any of these cases?
If the council has such little concern for farmland, how can we expect it to take care of farmers?
The principle that agricultural land should be used for agricultural purposes must be connected to efforts to increase farmers’ income, because the policy would otherwise be difficult to implement.
The government requires farmers to use their land for agricultural purposes in order to increase food self-sufficiency and restricts land use through the Non-urban Land Use Control Regulations (非都市土地使用管制規則). However, the government should also provide subsidies where necessary to ensure that farmers can make a living in today’s competitive market.
In Switzerland, the government provides direct environmental and cultural subsidies of between NT$1.2 million (US$40,000) and NT$1.5 million to each farming household per year.
How much does the Taiwanese government provide? Is the increase in the monthly subsidy for elderly farmers by NT$316 enough? Perhaps council officials need to be reminded that Su’s is not the only plot of agricultural land in Taiwan. As for farmers, they surely deserve more than a NT$316 increase in their monthly subsidy.
Hsu Shih-jung is a professor at National Chengchi University’s Department of Land Economics.
Translated By Eddy Chang
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In the opening remarks of her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) framed her visit as a historic occasion. In his own remarks, Xi had also emphasized the history of the relationship between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Where they differed was that Cheng’s account, while flawed by its omissions, at least partially corresponded to reality. The meeting was certainly historic, albeit not in the way that Cheng and Xi were signaling, and not from the perspective
RSS