Environmental advocates yesterday urged the Executive Yuan to reverse the National Property Administration’s decision to end national farmland leases to build an incinerator in Nantou County’s Mingjian Township (名間), saying it would make local agricultural workers ineligible for the new national farmland distribution program.
A farmer from the county, surnamed Lai (賴), said her family has been farming their land for decades, but the agency told her brother that the land has been allocated to the county government and would not be passed down in her family.
President William Lai (賴清德) announced a program to release farmland for private ownership, but her family became ineligible due to the county’s decision, she said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The agency’s decision involved 11 plots of farmland and would affect more than 20 local farmers such as Lai, Changhua Environmental Protection Union president Chang Shu-fen (張淑芬) said.
Government Watch Alliance executive director Hsu Hsin-hsin (許心欣) said the agency allocated the national farmland to the county government for the incinerator project, but that should not have happened, as it infringes on Article 38 of the National Property Act (國有財產法), which specifies that non-public properties — including national farmland — could not be appropriated for official or public use if it would contradict regional planning.
The action also contravened Article 17 of the 37.5 Percent Arable Rent Reduction Act (耕地三七五減租條例), which stipulates that farmland leases would not be terminated until the land has been legally changed to non-agricultural land, she said.
Taiwan Watch Institute secretary-general Herlin Hsieh (謝和霖) said the appropriated farmlands are near Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪), with an area of 7.5 hectares, and are categorized as part of the region’s special agricultural zone.
That means the farmlands should be prioritized for agricultural use, he said.
The agency in March allocated the farmland for the county’s incinerator project after the latter filed an application in February, even though the farms’ rezoning and the project’s environmental impact assessment review had not been conducted, Hsieh said.
In response, the agency has cited two official letters from the Ministry of the Interior written in 1993, which allowed local authorities to allocate national land for different use without prior applications for land use change and if they can prove that the change would not disrupt regional planning, he said.
The letters were about the Six-Year National Construction Plan from 1991 to 1997 and should not be applied to other land use change cases, Hsieh said.
Neither can the letters override statutes such as the two acts, he said, urging the Executive Yuan to revoke the agency’s decision and restore the farmers’ eligibility to apply for the land-releasing program.
An official from the Department of Fiscal, Statistical and Financial Affairs yesterday said that it would examine the issue and respond as soon as possible.
Lai last month announced the program, which would allow agricultural or aquacultural workers to own the farmland they have been cultivating since at least Sept. 24, 1976.
The program is expected to cover about 2,000 hectares of national farmlands nationwide and could benefit at least 4,440 farmers.
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