A group of young people has devised a novel way to help farmers in Hualien after days of rain closed the road which farmers in the area rely on for transporting their produce to Taipei.
The group initiated a “one person, one pumpkin to help farmers” campaign, which invited people traveling by train from Hualien to Taipei to each carry a pumpkin with them as luggage.
Volunteer couriers traveling from Hualien to Taipei before May 23, after which normal road traffic is expected to be resumed, can pick the pumpkins up in the lobby of Hualien Railway Station and drop them off at a collection point at Taipei Main Station, the group said.
Photo: Yang Yi-chung, Taipei Times
Chen Ta-pao (陳大保), a student at National Dong Hwa University who initiated the campaign, said that since torrential rains have affected the Suhua freeway, a major road linking Suao in Yilan County with Hualien City, trucks collecting and distributing farm produce can no longer travel directly north to Taipei, but instead have to travel south to Pingtung and then north up the west coast to Taipei — a journey that is considerably longer and one which demands additional transport costs.
“Some farmers have been forced to let their produce rot in the fields,” Chen said.
Pumpkins were chosen by the group as they are easy to carry and do not rot quickly.
If a pumpkin weighs 1.5kg on average, Chen figured that 6 tonnes of the vegetable could be brought to Taipei by 10 train-loads of passengers, which “would be a big help for the farmers,” he said.
Asked if he was worried that some people would simply take the pumpkins home, Chen laughed and said that “there would be nothing we could do about it.”
However, he added that many people are keen to lend a hand and he predicted that a large number of pumpkins would be delivered.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai