Thousands of people involved in the poultry industry nationwide braved the rainy weather yesterday to protest outside the Council of Agriculture in Taipei against the council’s order that chickens must be electronically slaughtered in certified slaughterhouses. The demonstrators said the new policy threatens their livelihoods.
Some of the protesters held banners accusing the government of “forcing the people to revolt,” while others threw rotten eggs, water bottles and flag poles at the council building — and the police deployed to guard it.
“I have five people to feed in my family with my small chicken farm, but now that traditional slaughtering is banned, I have to travel two hours back and forth to take the chickens to certified electrical slaughterhouse in Fengshan District (鳳山), Greater Kaohsiung. Sometimes the dead chickens go bad on the return trip, especially in the summer heat,” a farmer who identified himself as A-ching (阿清) from Kaohsiung’s Meinong District (美濃) told the crowd.
Photo: Pichi Chuang, Reuters
“Sometimes the slaughterhouse refuses to take my order, since it only starts the machine when there are at least 500 chickens,” she said.
A-ching said her business has been seriously affected since the order was imposed on May 17.
“What am I going to do to feed my family if I cannot make a living anymore?” A-ching said. “Are you going to feed my family, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)?”
Photo: Pichi Chuang, Reuters
The crowd responded with a round of applause and airhorn blasts.
Taiwan Rural Front spokeswoman Frida Tsai (蔡培慧) said that while Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) has repeatedly said the 83 certified poultry slaughterhouses nationwide were enough to meet demand, “it was a total lie.”
“The Poultry Association recently telephoned each of the 83 slaughterhouses for a poll. Only 47 provide slaughtering services for non-associated chicken farmers,” Tsai said.
Lee Wen-yang (李文揚), the second-generation owner of a popular poultry shop in Taipei’s Nanmen Market (南門市場) founded by his parents 50 years ago, said the capacity of the slaughterhouses was not sufficient to meet demand.
“My shop opens at 6am, but the poultry slaughterhouse is so jammed that often we cannot get our chickens until noon, and by that time the shopping crowd is gone,” Lee said. “The [slaughterhouse’s] quality of service is poor too. My mother and I have to spend a lot of time cleaning the chickens before putting them on shelf.”
The unequal distribution of the slaughterhouses around the country was also an issue, the protesters said, because there is only one certified electrical poultry slaughterhouse for Taipei and New Taipei City (新北市), which have a combined population of more than 6 million people.
There were minor clashes between the demonstrators and police, with the protesters pushing at police barricades.
Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Wang Cheng-teng (王政騰) met with a 10 representatives from the protesters, but the two sides were not able to reach an agreement. After the meeting, the demonstrators marched to the Presidential Office for another protest.
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
Taiwan is to extend its visa-waiver program for Philippine passport holders for another year, starting on Aug. 1, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said on Friday. Lin made the announcement during a reception in Taipei marking the 127th anniversary of Philippine independence and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The decision reflected Taiwan’s commitment to deepening exchanges with the Philippines, the statement cited Lin as saying, adding that it was a key partner under the New Southbound Policy launched in 2016. Lin also expressed hope
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Temperatures in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) climbed past 37°C yesterday, as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued heat alerts for 16 municipalities, warning the public of intense heat expected across Taiwan. The hottest location in Taiwan was in Sindian, where the mercury reached 37.5°C at about 2pm, according to CWA data. Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) recorded a temperature of 37.4°C at noon, Taitung County’s Jinfeng Township (金峰) at 12:50 pm logged a temperature of 37.4°C and Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) reached 36.7°C at 11:40am, the CWA said. The weather agency yesterday issued a yellow level information notice for Taipei, New
RSS