“Using agriculture to support industry” was a national policy in the 1970s, but since then, agricultural production value as a proportion of GDP has dropped sharply, as has the area of cultivated land. Agriculture is just not seen as important.
At the beginning of this decade, as the world faced a global food crisis, the government kept reiterating the importance of agriculture and farmers, and the Council of Agriculture even initiated the Small Landowner, Big Tenant policy, set up the Farmer’s Academy and encouraged young people to take up farming, but as soon as the nation encountered a water shortage, water for agricultural use was the first to be sacrificed, as paddy fields are forcefully laid fallow.
The result is that many farmers and contract farmers lost their jobs and are left without an income.
How could such an inconsistent national policy that in the end prioritizes industry over agriculture ever win public support? Small wonder that the government does not win farmers’ votes in elections. In addition, this policy also violates regulations stipulated in the Water Act (水利法).
It is true that the output value of the primary agricultural sector is lower than that of industry, but the production value of the secondary and tertiary agricultural sectors, the green industry and even the role rural villages play in a stable society are far greater than that of industry and commerce. It is not a good thing when national policy prioritizes one industry over others.
If water shortages become permanent, the government must give serious consideration to whether we should install dedicated aboveground and underground water reservoirs at each big industrial and science park, and come up with ways of doing so.
One question in particular that needs answering is whether the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which has the biggest say in the Cabinet each time there is a water shortage, has ever made any long-term plans for dealing with such a situation. If they have not, then now is the time to do so.
If it is incapable of doing this, it must consider if it would be feasible to limit industries consuming large volumes of water and energy and producing large amounts of pollution to a certain presence and level of development.
Otherwise local governments’ abuse of power and uninhibited “legal” land enclosures disguised as developments of industrial and science parks are set to continue. Over the years, this has already resulted in the loss of an uncountable number of fields, making a mockery of social and land justice, and it has also left both farmers and young returning contract farmers who are willing to till the land go without work. What kind of society is this?
Are subsidies for laying land fallow really an adequate solution for the livelihood problems facing farmers? Where should contract farmers without land to farm find work? The current situation has even put Tien Shou-hsi (田守喜) — a farmer who was commended by the council for the quality of his rice — out of work. What happened to all the talk about “small landowner, big tenant”? What about justice and fairness?
Bah humbug, I say. Will large groups of people living in rural villages today have to give up their rights because water use is allocated for industrial use? The high officials in the council, the ministry and the rest of the Cabinet owe it to everyone in the nation to offer some reasonable explanations.
Yang Ping-shih is a professor at, and former president of, National Taiwan University’s College of Bio-Resources and Agriculture.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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