Record-low rainfall in Yilan County this year has raised fears that harvests might be affected, the county’s weather bureau said on Tuesday.
Yilan is reliant on rainwater brought by typhoons, which generally arrive from July to September, but there have been none this year. The county only had 11mm of rain last month, the least recorded in 15 years, it said.
Yilan said crops are suffering due to the water shortage, with reports of withered tea shrubs in the Dongshan Township (冬山) region and more than two-thirds of newly planted tea trees dying.
Photo courtesy of Fu Tea
Township residents said that over the past five decades, the area has seen little to no rainfall, leading to mountain streams drying up and depriving tea trees of a valuable water source.
Chen Wan-hui (陳琬惠), the Taiwan People’s Party candidate for Yilan County commissioner, said that Yilan had never needed a reservoir, but due to climate change the county might see less rain.
The county government should prepare, and start setting up water storage facilities while stepping up water reclamation measures, Chen said.
The bureau said it would ask the Council of Agriculture to issue subsidies if the area of affected tea trees in Dongshan exceeds 20 percent.
Meanwhile, Yilan growers are concerned about an alleged export ban on Asian pear sprigs from China’s Shandong Province, the primary type used to graft the “Lieutenant General” Asian pear cultivar in Taiwan, the county’s Agriculture Department said.
As cuttings cannot acclimatize to Taiwan’s weather, new cuttings have to be grafted every year.
The bureau said that the cultivar is planted over 43 hectares in Taiwan, and has an annual profit margin of NT$100 million (US$3.34 million).
The cultivar is further subdivided into two types, the “fengshui pear” (豐水), using Japanese cuttings, and the “golden pear” (黃金), which uses cuttings from Shandong Province, the bureau said.
Growers placed orders to China last year for “golden pear” cuttings, farmer Weng Sung-ken (翁松根) said.
They were supposed to arrive in Taiwan by December last year, but arrived in late January, Weng said, adding that the delay caused growers to miss the window during which grafting is best conducted, leading to a drastic decrease in pears.
“When we reached out this year to make more orders, the intermediaries told us China would not be exporting cuttings anymore,” Weng said.
The Sansing Township (三星) Farmers’ Association said it would be holding meetings on how to help growers obtain necessary cuttings, adding that, in the worst-case scenario, they should consider grafting other kinds of pears.
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck Chiayi County at 4:37pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 36.3km southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 10.4km, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Chiayi County, Tainan and Kaohsiung on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Pingtung, Taitung, Hualien, Changhua, Nantou and Penghu counties, the data
The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal filed by former Air Force officer Shih Chun-cheng (史濬程), convicted of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage, finalizing his sentence at two years and two months for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法). His other ruling, a ten-month sentence for an additional contravention, was meanwhile overturned and sent to the Taichung branch of the High Court for retrial, the Supreme Court said today. Prosecutors have been notified as Shih is considered a flight risk. Shih was recruited by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence officials after his retirement in 2008 and appointed as a supervisor
RSS