Taiwan has offered to help its diplomatic allies eradicate coffee leaf rust by providing funding and expertise to the countries where coffee production is a major source of income, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The plan is aimed at helping farmers improve their ability to weather an outbreak of leaf-rust fungus, International Cooperation and Development Fund deputy secretary-general Morgan Chao (趙家寶) said.
A group of Taiwanese plant pathologists last month paid a visit to Honduras and El Salvador, where they met with government officials and farmers to learn about how the disease has affected coffee plants’ growth and yield since last year, he said.
Under the plan, Taiwan will work with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration to provide loans at concessional rates to small farmers in those countries to help them fight the epidemic, Chao said.
Taiwanese plant pathologists will join the International Regional Organization for Plant and Animal Health to share their knowledge with their Central American counterparts in treating the dreaded leaf-rust disease, he added.
Details of the plan, which has received a warm response from the two countries, could be expected by the end of this year, Chao said.
While coffee is not one of Taiwan’s main crops, Taiwan is highly experienced in the prevention and control of pests and plant diseases, Chao said.
The ministry was confident that coffee leaf rust can be effectively controlled through cooperation between Taiwan and the affected countries, Chao added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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