Providing subsidies to poultry farms to build better coops cannot resolve issues arising from an industry plagued by a backward system of raising chickens and lagging technology, animal groups and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said yesterday.
More than 80 percent of hens in the nation are still kept in cages with no room to move, Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan executive director Chu Tseng-hung (朱增宏) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
These chickens have lower immunity systems because they are constantly under stress, Chu added.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
A special budget to help farmers upgrade coops should be based on the Council of Agriculture’s Friendly Egg-laying System Definition and Guidelines (雞蛋友善生產系統定義及指南) to establish model farms, he said.
Coop upgrades should be a decade-long project, with rolling reviews on existing regulations, such as the Regulation on Animal Husbandry Registration (畜禽飼養登記管理辦法), Chu said.
This would remove roadblocks to upgrading the poultry industry, and help encourage and subsidize egg farmers to transition to an animal-friendly production model, he said.
The government should also amend the Standards for Primary Facilities at Husbandry Farms (畜牧場主要設施設置標準) to prohibit the building of new battery cages and demand that farmers comply with the mid-to-long term upgrade project to gradually phase out such cages, he said.
Chu also urged the government to step up education and research into animal-friendly husbandry and to encourage more young people to join the industry.
Citing 2021 statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization, Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan member Tsun Fang-chu (寸舫筑) said that Taiwan’s annual average egg production per hen, at 190, or 52 percent, was lower than the global average of 202.
Despite raising more chickens, the poultry industry produced fewer eggs, Tsun said, adding that pollution by the industry is a problem.
More than 60 percent of farmers older than 60 were unable to keep up with the industry’s modernization, she said.
Despite the government providing NT$1.05 billion (US$34.29 million) in subsidies, only 200, or one-10th, of all coops could be upgraded, Lin said, adding that subsidies for lagging chicken-raising systems suggest government negligence.
Subsidies should be given out to farms that follow the council’s standards, with every egg-laying hen having 750m2 of space to move in, Lin said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS