Farmers who had their land expropriated by the government for development projects yesterday protested a draft act to facilitate industrial development, expressing concern that the bill could turn the government into a tool of large corporations.
“The government compensated us with a little over NT$9,000 per ping [3.3m²], when our farmland was expropriated, but the published real estate price is more than NT$40,000 per ping,” Wang Wan-ying (王婉盈), a farmer from Taichung County whose land was taken over by the government to be made part of Central Taiwan Science Park, said at a press conference at the legislature.
Wang said she was also concerned about her family's future.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) may want to lower the unemployment rate by creating more industrial parks, but taking land from farmers is killing us — what are we going to do without land?” she asked.
“It’s ironic that my family was one of the farming families trained by the government in advanced agricultural techniques, because now it’s the government that’s destroying our livelihood,” Wang said, while displaying several awards to her family for excellence in agricultural production.
Wang’s family is not an isolated case.
Farmers from Miaoli, Changhua, Hsinchu and Hualien counties whose land was also expropriated for either industrial parks or resorts joined Wang in her protest.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said that the newly developed industrial parks were the result of the Act for Upgrading Industries (促進產業升級條例), which expired at the end of last year.
However, the government has drafted an act on innovative industries — which also includes clauses authorizing governments to help expropriate land for certain business investments — as an extension of the expired law.
“Thousands of hectares are still unused in previously completed industrial parks, so the government has no reason to take more land from farmers until all the previously expropriated land has been put to good use,” Lin said. “I suspect that the government is doing so not for the public interest. Rather, they are doing so in the interest of large corporations and real estate developers.”
The Alliance for Fair Tax Reform, which supports the farmers, agreed and cited the project to move the Taipei Detention Center in Tucheng City, Taipei County, as an example.
According to the plan, Taipei County Government will expropriate 126 hectares of land to build the new Taipei Detention Center; however, the detention center would only take up around 10 to 20 hectares. The rest would be turned into residential and commercial districts.
“Such a case is not an isolated one, rather, it is just one example of how the government and corporations work together to exploit the disadvantaged,” the alliance said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS