AGRICULTURE
Expo rice to help feed poor
Greater Taichung’s Agricultural Bureau said it will purchase a field of colorful rice strains that was grown to promote the 2018 Taichung International Flora Expo and donate the harvested rice to a food bank in the municipality. To help promote the expo, the city government planted black glutinous rice along with yellow and green varieties in a design that, when seen from above, reads “2018 International Flora Expo in Taichung.” The rice, which covers a hectare of farmland, could be harvested next month, bureau Director Cai Jing-qiang (蔡精強) said. He added that the field could produce 3 tonnes of rice, which will be donated to help disadvantaged groups. The public can enjoy a clear view of the field from the farmers’ market in Waipu District (外埔區) before the rice is to be harvested on June 20, Cai said.
AGRICULTURE
Urban farming encouraged
New Taipei City is promoting urban farming in residential areas, hoping to encourage residents to transform idle spaces on rooftops and in public areas into vegetable gardens. By growing their own vegetables, residents can beautify the environment while promoting organic agriculture, Agriculture Department Commissioner Liao Jung-ching (廖榮清) said on Wednesday while visiting a hillside community in Xindian District (新店). The practice would bring food to the table along with peace of mind, Liao said, adding that small urban farms can have a “healing effect,” as city dwellers relieve stress by working on their farms. Tammy Turner, an American who has lived in Xindian for 30 years, said she and her neighbors use fallen leaves and kitchen leftovers as fertilizer to transform a plot of wasteland into a community garden.
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
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