Taiwan is founded on farming, indeed the development of human civilization has relied on advances in agriculture. It is important that agricultural reform policies are well thought through, so that one false move does not set off a destructive chain reaction.
Many governments have come to grief throughout history because of food shortages, yet the Council of Agriculture has introduced a string of major policies: opening Taiwan up to imports of US beef injected with ractopamine; canceling inoculations against foot-and-mouth disease; establishing agricultural distribution centers in free economic demonstration zones; massively deregulating Chinese investment in Taiwanese agriculture; and opening up designated agricultural areas for electricity generation.
The government, having failed to communicate its policies, has left farmers with the impression that it intends to leave the agricultural industry by the wayside. It has reinforced the suspicions among agricultural non-governmental organizations that the government intends to get rid of farming altogether.
Economically advanced countries and areas such as the US and the EU adopt strict rules and regulations aimed at ensuring the availability of agriculturally productive land and regulating changes made to it. These countries provide considerable farming subsidies as an incentive for people to work in the sector.
They also regard food as part of the state’s strategic armory, and think very carefully before allowing overseas input.
In the US, for example, many states — such as Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin — have laws explicitly prohibiting foreign investor ownership of farmland. While the Chinese company Shuanghui International has announced it would buy Smithfield Foods — the world’s largest seller of processed pork products — the acquisition must first pass a US federal government committee review charged with evaluating national security risks.
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said that whoever controls the food supply controls the people. Clearly, agriculture is regarded as important in the US. Taiwan’s government — even when we have a food self-sufficiency rate of only 32 percent — is still countenancing certain departments which, in the name of promoting economic development, are sequestering huge swathes of prime farmland for industrial parks, business parks, science parks and biotech parks.
Taiwan is hemorrhaging an average of almost 10,000 hectares a year, so that it only has isolated pockets of farmland here and there, with none of the uninterrupted stretches of land devoted to farming that the nation used to have. Also, much of the water supply previously allocated for agricultural use has been diverted to industry, making farming an even more precarious prospect.
This is why the appropriation of the local water supply for the fourth phase expansion of the Central Taiwan Science Park met with such anger from farmers.
Taiwan imports more than 90 percent of its energy. It is imperative that we develop new alternative energy sources and a comprehensive energy resource development policy. Solar energy is one possibility. The success of the Aqua Solar Farm program in Pingtung County is evidence.
It would be a good idea to use land for electricity generation in areas that receive plentiful sunlight, but are prone to land subsidence and unsuitable for agricultural use. Farmers with relatively low incomes should be encouraged to explore alternative sources of revenue through policy incentives such as increasing the resale price of electricity and providing low-interest financing loans and technological support.
The problem is that when there are already 200,000 hectares of farmland lying fallow, the government has surprisingly allowed 330,000 hectares of prime farmland previously zoned exclusively for agricultural use — land prioritized as farmland or on which there has previously been significant investment on improving agricultural facilities — to now be developed for electricity generation.
There are no support plans in place, nor have detailed evaluations been carried out, or have the authorities communicated well with farmers’ groups on these moves.
All of this is sure to be detrimental to Taiwan’s long-term grain storage and production capacity, irrigation systems and peripheral facilities, which is bad news for our food self-sufficiency rate and for soil and water conservation.
High investment costs for developing these electricity generation facilities are way above what ordinary farmers are able to afford. It is not surprising that many environmentalists suspect corporate groups are hiding behind promises of developing green energy solutions simply to get their hands on land that they intend to use other than for electricity generation.
Once farmland has been lost, it is very difficult to get back. People will find it very difficult to get by in a food shortage crises. The government, in its incompetence, is looking out for the interests of the few, but it will be the whole country that ends up paying the price.
Prime farmland is not the best option for building solar energy generators. If this government policy is implemented it will have far-reaching repercussions for Taiwan’s development and survival.
Taiwan is poised to go down a path of no return, and we cannot just stand idly by.
We need to demand that the government pulls back on the reins, so that it does not jeopardize the future.
Du Yu is chief executive officer of the Chen-Li Task Force for Agricultural Reform.
Translated by Paul Cooper
A recent report concerning a student who is suing his teacher posed the question in its headline: Does failing a student in two subjects constitute bullying? The college student in Chiayi County apparently sought NT$2 million (US$63,603) in state compensation, but a court dismissed the case. The first reaction of many might have been to ask: What has happened to students nowadays? Some say that teachers have lost their authority, while others say students are overindulged. Some even start reminiscing over the days when “whatever the teacher says goes.” However, the real issue might be overlooked if emotional reactions like that are the
When I visited Taiwan last summer, I called on the nation to use its status as a technology superpower to build superweapons. It is obvious to me as I return a year later that Taiwan is now answering that call. By 2030, Taiwan envisions a domestic drone hub, capable of producing large quantities of drones per year. The nation continues to tighten cooperation across the private sector, scientific researchers and the elected government, on creating new and innovative production avenues for defense, while efforts to become central to the “democratic supply chain” are only increasing. Anduril is seeing all of these positive
Singaporean former Prime Minister and current senior minister Lee Hsien- Loong(李顯龍) last month stood on Chinese soil and told Beijing that Singapore cooperates because of “shared interests”, not because of common “ethnic descent,” a significant statement that has upended China’s cognitive warfare tactics of “ethnic nationalism.” Along with using its military buildup and economic growth to expand its international dominance, China has long deployed ethnic politics to promote the idea that all ethnic Chinese around the world, regardless of citizenship, share a tight bond with the Chinese motherland, by which it means the regime of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
Taiwan’s economic momentum, driven by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products, remains strong, with booming demand for advanced semiconductors, servers and key components. In the first quarter, GDP expanded 14.55 percent year-on-year, the second consecutive quarter of double-digit percentage growth and accelerating from the 12.95 percent expansion in the previous quarter, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported on Friday. Net exports remained the dominant driver of growth, contributing 10.33 percentage points to Taiwan’s GDP growth in the first quarter. That came as exports rose 35.76 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, outpacing 26.34 percent growth in imports, the
RSS