To make better use of farmland, the Council of Agriculture announced that it will make adjustments to the farmland revitalization project next year, including adding five types of import substitution crops for farmers to grow.
The council said there were 200,000 hectares of fallow land in the two crop seasons of 2011, but in an effort to secure domestic food security to cope with climate change, it initiated a project to adjust the farming system and revitalize farmland last year.
By encouraging farmers to grow import substitution crops, local specialty crops, organic crops or crops with export potential on fallow land, the council said 88,000 hectares of fallow land have been revitalized since the project took effect this year.
It said while there were at least 48,000 hectares of farmland that lay fallow for many seasons, which were listed as key areas for revitalization, about 31,000 hectares among them have been used for at least one season this year, a revitalization rate of 65 percent.
The area reported to have remained fallow for both seasons dropped from 200,000 hectares in 2011 to about 112,000 hectares this year, it added.
In addition to the import substitution crops, such as corn, soy bean or other grain crops that the council had encouraged farmers to grow, the Agriculture and Food Agency said it plans to add flaxseed, coix seed, mesona, camellia tea oil and stable commodity tea for farmers to choose from and grow next year.
Council Deputy Director-General Chen Chien-pin (陳建斌) said corn is being suggested as the first priority for growing an import substitution crop, but local agricultural research and extension stations will assist the farmers with technical advice for growing other crops if the land is not suitable for growing corn.
The agency said it will subsidize contract farmers who grow the five new commodity crops — NT$24,000 for each hectare of flaxseed, coix seed or mesona grown each season, NT$45,000 for each hectare of camellia tea oil or stable commodity tea grown each season for the first three years, and NT$45,000 for the whole year the fourth year. The subsidies are limited to four years.
Moreover, it said in order to improve the government’s public grain quality and food security, “ratooning rice” and “weedy rice” (rice grown from grains left on the soil after harvest) will not be purchased by the government as public grain starting next year.
Because the quality of rice grown in northern Taiwan is easily affected by the northeast monsoon and the quality of ratooning rice and weedy rice grown in central coastal areas is unstable, the agency said it will instruct the farmers to only grow rice in one season and grow other crops in the second season to cultivate soil fertility.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods