With farmers planning a sit-in protest against land seizures in front of the Presidential Office tonight, the government yesterday promised to come up with a better bill to regulate the use of farmland in three months.
Construction and Planning Agency Director-General Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文) said the government planned to submit an amendment to the Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例) to the legislature in three months.
He made the remarks at a press conference held by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers.
“The government has to present an amendment [to the Act] at the earliest time possible. It would be unbearable to see elderly farmers sit-in under the scorching sun,” KMT caucus whip Chao Li-yun (趙麗雲) said.
Farmers and farming activists have demanded revisions to the Act, which they believe favors developers over farmers.
Following a series of farmers’ protests against farmland expropriation to give way to development projects, the Taiwan Rural Front published its proposed revisions to the Act in November last year.
Taiwan Rural Front spokesperson Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧) said Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) had promised in November that the amendment would be deliberated in the legislature in May.
However, the Ministry of the Interior only submitted its proposed amendment to the Executive Yuan for review on June 24. The proposal is still sitting on the desk of Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源), a minister without portfolio in charge of national territorial planning, pending inter--ministerial review.
The legislative session ended last month.
Farmers are taking to the street today — one year after a rally last year that attracted more than 2,000 people — to protest against the delay in legislation to regulate the government’s power to seize agricultural land and convert it for other purposes.
The main differences between the version presented by the farmers’ groups and the ministry’s proposal lie in the prerequisites for expropriation of farmland and methods to appraise land value.
“It will take some time to incorporate the two versions,” Yeh said.
According to the protest organizers, more than 2,000 farmers from 12 communities will take part in the overnight rally, which is scheduled to start at 6pm on Ketagalan Boulevard.
The rally, organized by Taiwan Rural Front and the Farming Village Defense Alliance, is expected to end at 9am tomorrow.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LOA IOK-SIN
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