In the increasingly fierce battle for water in Hsinchu yesterday, the Chairman of the Council of Agriculture (COA) Fan Cheng-chung (
"I strongly oppose giving priority to industry over farmers in regard to water use. Farmers are my top priority," Fan said.
Fan was referring to emergency measures that shift water for farms to the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park.
In regard to the plan, implemented on March 1 and involving, according to revised Cabinet figures, 14,625 hectares to be left fallow, Fan commented that those who use the borrowed water should pay for it.
Fan said being forced to let fields lie fallow so that industry has enough water is an embarrassment for the COA.
"I'd rather step down than allow farmers' rights to use water be manipulated this way," Fan said.
Fan joked sarcastically that the oversight for agricultural affairs should be transferred to water resources agencies if the government intends to so willfully ignore a farmer's right to use water.
PFP legislator Chou Hsi-wei (周錫偉) yesterday criticized agricultural officials for failing to carry out the fallow project, after Hsinchu County Commissioner Cheng Yung-chin (鄭永金) permitted the opening of a water gate at the Chutung Irrigation Channel (竹東圳) on Monday.
Responding to Chou's comments, Fan called for better cooperation between government agencies in sharing the cost of compensating farmers in regard to the fallow project.
Meanwhile, Hsinchu County Commissioner Cheng yesterday closed the gate he opened on Monday after the Ministry of Economic Affairs promised to consider giving even more compensation to farmers in Chutung township (竹東) than those in the rest of Hsinchu.
Farmers in Chutung argue that the government has no right to close the water gate on the Chutung Irrigation Channel because it was built by local residents during the Japanese occupation and that therefore, they deserve extra compensation.
Fan said that the science park's overseer, the National Science Council (NSC,
Fan added that the COA would only assume NT$293 million of the estimated NT$1 billion in compensation costs for the fallow project.
At the legislature, lawmakers yesterday criticized the NSC for failing to properly plan for potential water shortage problems at the park and demanded that the agency issue a review of the issue within a week.
DPP legislator Chiu Zang (
James Lee (
In Taiwan, water resources management is divided up between several governmental agencies, including the Water Resource Bureau, the Water Conservancy Agency, the Taiwan Water Supply Corporation, the COA and others.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching