The nation’s agriculture sector should evolve toward sustainable development and adapt to the effects of climate change, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
Tsai made the remark at the inauguration of the Sixth National Agricultural Congress in Taipei, where many attendants called for more action to prevent diseases, such as African swine fever.
The two-day congress, to discuss how to develop safe, sustainable and progressive agriculture, was organized by the Council of Agriculture and is taking place at the Taipei International Convention Center.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Over the past two years, the government has promoted many reforms in the agriculture sector, such as passing the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act (有機農業促進法), amending the Organic Regulations for Irrigation and Water Conservancy Associations (農田水利會組織通則) and completing an inventory of farmland use across the nation, Tsai said in her speech.
Farmers in central and southern Taiwan last month suffered serious damage caused by heavy rain and flooding, and while the government has provided relief payments to victims to help restore their farmland, it needs to develop more innovative ideas regarding how agricultural production can coexist with the changing environment, she said.
As farmers are no longer covered by insurance systems when they reach the age of 65, the government is offering them a monthly allowance of NT$7,256, but it is insufficient for retired farmers to lead a stable life, Tsai said, expressing her hope that attendants would offer more suggestions about how to improve the lives of retired farmers.
It has been 15 years since the previous congress was convened in 2003, and prior to the meeting, the council held 18 meetings nationwide from April to June to collect opinions at the grassroots level, Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) said.
The congress is not merely political pageantry as some people have claimed, as the council hopes to create a road map for developing a sustainable agriculture sector by 2050, Lin said.
During a panel discussion about food safety, several experts took note of the shortage of officials dealing with animal affairs, advising the council to work with veterinary schools to beef up its disease prevention system, especially when an African swine fever outbreak in China is threatening the nation’s agriculture sector.
The panel discussions are to be wrapped up by Lin at the closing ceremony today, which is to be attended by Premier William Lai (賴清德), the council said.
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