The Statute of Rural Renewal puts Taiwan's Farmers in red alert
出自TawianRuralWiki
By Hsun-Yi Hsieh
Activists against the Statute of Rural Renewal, Taiwan, are constantly on the alert to prevent the Kuomintang (KMT) from forcing through the statute in the Legislative Yuan. The controversial Statute of Rural Renewal has aroused debates between governmental officials and groups of farmers, variously involved NGOs, writers, scholars, architects and concerned citizens. Pro-statute governmental officials claim that the statute is meant to help falling rural communities prosper. Nevertheless, statute's opponents complain that the statute is not only an example of negative modern trends in rural development, but a catastrophe for the next generation.
The statute is the result of incumbent President Ma Ying-Jeou’s rural policies. Ma’s agricultural policy, Small Landlords Big Tenants, envisions that urban dwellers rent farms and operate large-scale agriculture through the application of farm machinery, modern agricultural technologies such as refrigeration, and innovative production and marketing. The statute will channel 200 billion NTD to 4,000 rural communities and is claimed to be a response to the need for agricultural reform. The money will mainly be used to revitalize rural communities, governmental officials claim.
Nevertheless, opponents are concerned that the passage of the statute will further endanger food security and sovereignty, yield limited farmland to construction, and exacerbate the loss of Taiwanese rural culture.
Taiwan has suffered a serious loss of food sovereignty. Currently, it retains a domestic 30.6% share of its food supply, a bleak consequence of fallow policies since the 1980s and the recent entry in the WTO in 2002. In 1980, Taiwan had approximately 640,000 hectares of farmland, which amounted to 18% of its entire area. In twenty-two years from 1980 to 2002, it had lost 170,000 hectares of farmland. Since the entry to WTO in 2002, it has lost another 240,000 hectares. Only 230,000 hectares of land on this island remains as farmland, out of the 3,6 million hectares of the entire area. In addition, rural communities also have suffered aging population, exodus of youth, poverty and insufficient medical and educational services.
Many articles in the Statute of Rural Renewal have aroused concerns, including one permitting the government to expropriate farmlands in the name of community development. Opponents consider this article a threat to Taiwan’s food security and sovereignty. Another article which has aroused similar concern allows a small farmer to convert half of his or her farmland for construction, given the farmer agrees to release the other half of the land for public services.
Analyzing present trends in oil prices, biofuel demands and the general state of the world economy, Dr. Peng Ming-Huei, National Tsinghua University, expresses his strong concern that the statute can only add to the misfortunes of the already unfortunate poor. “Legalizing the conversion of farmland to construction is an offensive breach of conduct of the Council of Agriculture,” Peng said in a public hearing of the statute on March 26th 2009. He added, “The duty of the Council of Agriculture is to guarantee that all Taiwanese people have equal access to food. Soon in the future, world oil prices will peak at 65 USD per barrel, and at that time a great upsurge in biofuel production will come again and exacerbate a food crisis. Yet you who sit in the hearing will not become the sufferers of the statute’s evil deeds because you have high incomes. It will be the poor who will be victimized. By 2015, six years from now, you will see the pernicious consequences [of your actions].”
In the same hearing, Dr. Hsu Shi-Jong, National Chengchi University, lashed out at the Council of Agriculture in saying that the statute is a careless plan of corrupt administration. “Only one procedure is required, which is that the conversion rules are determined by the central authority of the government powers involved.” Hsu noted that “[...]The Urban Planning Act has twenty five procedures. The Statute of Rural Renewal has only one. This shuffled-through statute adds nothing but insults to rural communities.”
Activists against the statute are worried that the KMT will try and sneak the statute into the next stage. Roxana Chen, one opponent of the statute, revealed that the KMT had purposely not disclosed the time when the public hearing was to be held. She said, “Farmers were prohibited from entering the meeting room. Some campaigner’s posters were taken away by security guards when they attempted to enter. Some of them were held back when they tried to speak to President Ma Ying-Jeou.”
Wu YinNing, a writer, and Tsai Pei-Hui, a doctoral candidate in Bio-industrial Communication and Development at National Taiwan University, and who also wrote Three Minutes to Understand the Statute of Rural Renewal, has indicated that the authorities and the mainstream media have banded together. “We could hardly find our voice on newsletters,” Wu indicated.
However, the efforts of the campaign have yielded something. Although the government is still apparently determined to pass the statute, citizens’ phone calls and more than 10,000 petition signatures collected in two weeks have pressured the government to hold four more public hearings.
Meanwhile, activists also have come up with eleven principles that they think an acceptable Statute of Rural Renewal should have.
- Assuring food sovereignty.
- Guaranteeing agricultural water safety and providing rural communities with sewage treatment facilities.
- Providing rural medical, educational, and public transportation services.
- Encouraging the development of organic agriculture.
- Encouraging the development of CSA.
- Enhancing the multi-functionality of agriculture and increasing small farmers’ incomes.
- Improving agricultural production and marketing on the basis of small farmer production.
- Subsidies and stable supplies of agricultural materials to farmers.
- Putting in place a "from the bottom upwards" rural renewal program, on the basis of investigation into actual rural conditions.
- Putting in place rural development offices at both the central and county levels in order to encourage communication between rural and urban areas.
- Placing a sunset clause on the 18th article of the Agricultural Development Act
