Some farmers in agricultural Chiayi County are expected to reap a harvest of dollars this season after a host of conflicting initiatives from the central and local government authorities are set to provide them with large subsidies regardless of whether they chose to farm or not.
The Executive Yuan announced recently that it would request that 8,000 hectares of farmland in Chiayi County temporarily lie fallow as part of the first phase of closures amid the region’s precarious water supplies.
As part of the announcement, it said that subsidies for closed farms would increase by NT$20,000 to as much as NT$80,000 per hectare this season.
The policy was harshly criticized by Chiayi County Commissioner Chang Hwa-kuan (張花冠), who called the generous subsidies “a laziness reward” and said that farm closures would harm the agricultural industry.
She said the pause in production would cause irreparable damage to the county’s famed rice brands and jeopardize marketing and promotion efforts.
Addressing local farming associations on Tuesday, Chang said the county government would seek to provide electrical subsidies worth up to NT$1,000 per parcel of land for farmers involved in the production of certain types of rice.
The amount roughly translates to NT$10,000 per hectare.
The response from farming associations remained lukewarm.
The subsidies by the Chiayi County Government would have to be doubled to compete with that of the central government, some farmers said.
In addition, they said that as water for agricultural use had already been cut, many would have to dig up groundwater supplies to water their crops.
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