The Council of Agriculture (COA) said it plans to lift the requirement that farmers should possess a minimum area of farmland to be eligible for farmers’ insurance, after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers criticized the eligibility criterion.
According to the Farmer Health Insurance Act (農民健康保險條例), farmers have to own at least 0.1 hectares of farmland or rent at least 0.2 hectares of farmland to be eligible for insurance, DPP Legislator Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧) told a news conference yesterday.
Due to a now-defunct agricultural law that strictly limited farm owners from terminating or modifying contracts with tenant farmers, senior owners tend to rent out their properties with verbal agreements rather than written ones, resulting in the exclusion of many young farmers from insurance coverage and benefits such as subsidies, low-interest loans and disaster relief, Tsai said.
Yilan County farmer Wu Chia-ling (吳佳玲) said it costs between NT$2 million and NT$3 million (US$66,689 and US$100,033) to purchase 0.1 hectares of farmland in the county, a financial burden that young farmers cannot easily shoulder, and called on the government to determine insurance eligibility with criteria other than property ownership or tenancy.
“The aging of the agricultural workforce is a pressing issue for the government, but if it prioritizes the task of cracking down on ‘fake farmers,’ the needs of real farmers would be neglected,” DPP Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said.
“The council has to improve the farmers’ health insurance and include farmers in social security systems to attract more young people into farming,” Chuang said.
The average age of farmers in the nation is 62 and 62.3 percent of students of agricultural colleges consider pursuing farming as an occupation, according to a media survey in May, so the government has to ensure sustainable working conditions for them, DPP Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) said.
Lawmakers asked the council to lift the restrictions within the act and include tenant farmers in the insurance scheme within six months.
Council Department of Farmers’ Services Director Chu Chien-wei (朱建偉) said the council plans to disassociate farmland ownership and tenancy from insurance eligibility.
The council has resolved the decades-old issue of the insurance eligibility of bee farmers, who often move from one place to another to harvest honey, and the council approved their insurance applications based on their beekeeping practice instead of farm ownership, Chu said.
The council would propose measures within a few months to include young farmers in the health insurance scheme, he said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and