The Council of Agriculture Has Been Reduced to Electioneering Machinery, Sitting Idly by to Watch the Erosion of Farmland

 The Council of Agriculture Has Been Reduced to Electioneering Machinery, Sitting Idly by to Watch the Erosion of Farmland

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 24, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

New Power Party legislator Hsu Yung-ming recently questioned that the agricultural media outlet of the “Harvest Association” under the Council of Agriculture (COA), self-proclaimed as an independent media outlet, yet frequently invited DPP candidates to gain exposure on its programs, thus being suspected of abusing public funds for electioneering purposes. KMT legislator Ma Wen-chun also pointed out that the "Farm Village Development Foundation", another organization under the COA, has been headed by Tsai Fu-ching, a Chen Chu protégé, as chairman, yet the appointment was "hiring a fat cat to help in the campaign", utilizing resources of the state to canvass votes for the DPP. The two incidents, side by side with COA Minister Chen Chi-chung’s various policies of squandering public funds, indicate that the COA has been reduced to "electioneering machinery" for the DPP.

The issue of "solar power generation on farmland" has elicited debate in recent days. Lured by enormous interests from solar power generation, many plots of first-class farmland have been endlessly gobbled up by solar panels; the main reason is that the economics sector of the government amended laws to pave a smooth way out, easing regulations on "general class of farmland" to enable its utilization by changing its classification. Plus lured by operators of energy sources and "feeder cockroaches", farmland has incessantly been divided and used, through illegal means, by some opportunists, who are not actually engaged in agriculture, for solar power generation, winning windfall profits. When green power was developed during the era of the Ma government, at a minimum, the government strictly guarded the gates, only allowing farmland with problems of subsidence and no longer being arable to apply for solar power generation. In contrast, Chen Chi-chung, who rose from the farmers movement, nevertheless, easily kowtowed to the energy policies of the Tsai government, sitting idly by to watch the malicious erosion of farmland. Does this kind of top executive in the government sector of agriculture truly love agriculture or harm agriculture? Does this kind of government truly love Taiwan or harm Taiwan?

May we ask, with respect to the illicit electioneering activities of the Harvest Association and the Farm Village Development Foundation, if it had occurred during the era of the KMT administration, how would the DPP have reacted with big guns as well as verbal and written attacks? But now the DPP is doing it itself, yet it doesn’t blush a bit or become short of breath. The protégés of Chen Chu and Lai Ching-te have marched into the central government in the last two or three years, occupying important posts, using a limited vista to govern the country, operating the resources of the government for partisan interests. Only by looking at the COA being reduced to electioneering machinery and farmland being reduced to an opportunist tool for profits making, could the public not see through who is "depleting the resources of the state"?

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