For every NT$1 (US$0.033) paid into the Agricultural Technology Development Program, an estimated NT$6.9 is created in industrial benefits, Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) said yesterday.
The program was created by the council in 2006 to encourage companies to invest in research and development to accelerate the industrialization of agricultural technology and enhance the industry’s competitiveness.
Lee Hung-hsi (李紅曦), vice director of the council’s Department of Science and Technology, said 96 projects are in the works across the program’s three divisions — research institutions, universities and agricultural industry.
Some of the projects presented yesterday included an LED fish-attracting lamp, weighing half that of a halogen lamp, that would reduce the tonnage of a fishing boat and save almost NT$4 million on fuel consumption for each voyage.
The council said that the lighting technology saves about 20 percent of fuel consumption costs, while not reducing the amount of Pacific saury caught on boats.
The council added that exposure to ultraviolet rays from the LED light will not harm the fish.
Other notable innovations presented included a process for increasing the size of golden clams from a previous 400 to 800 clams per kilogram to 350 to 700 clams per kilogram, along with a “negative pressure” isolation chicken cage capable of improving chickens’ immune system, their inventors said.
As part of the government’s overall budget of NT$770 billion for the program, NT$190 billion was generated from the industrial sector, NT$470 billion from related investments and nearly NT$300 billion from increased industrial output value, Lee said.
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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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching