Yunlin County Magistrate Li Chin-yung Calls for a Complete Review of the National Land Use Plan

On the morning of the 7th, the central Taiwan public hearing on the National Land Use Plan was held in Changhua County. Yunlin County has a total land area of 129,100 hectares, of which Category 1 agricultural land alone covers as much as 63,000 hectares, meaning half of the land is subject to use restrictions, and local development is constrained. Magistrate Li Chin-yung urgently called on the central government to take into account the reality that subsided farmland is unsuitable for cultivation, the needs of local industrial development, and supporting compensation measures for the losses suffered by farmland owners, and to conduct a comprehensive review and replanning.

According to the 2011 National Food Security Conference, to maintain the national food self-sufficiency rate by 2020, the total national farmland resource should be maintained at 740,000 to 810,000 hectares. Yunlin County must cooperate in controlling 77,500 hectares of farmland, of which Category 1 agricultural land alone reaches as much as 63,000 hectares.

Magistrate Li Chin-yung said that in order to reach the numerical targets, the national land planning failed to take into account the actual conditions of farmland. For example, the area west of the high-speed rail has severely subsided ground layers and should be converted to low-water-consumption, low-energy-consumption uses, yet most of it has instead been designated as Category 1 agricultural land, which has deviated from the spirit of land planning. The National Land Use Plan cites old data from many years ago for its designations, causing the plan to be seriously distorted and inappropriate. It is truly necessary to re-examine its designation principles, appropriately adjust the classification and grading of farmland in line with current conditions, and only then apply them to national land planning in order to build a sustainable national land strategy.

Magistrate Li Chin-yung stressed that although it is all land, the price of several jia and fen of Yunlin landowner land cannot compare with one ping of land in Taipei. Once designated as Category 1 agricultural land, the land price is immediately harmed. With such disregard for farmers' rights and interests, the central government should take land use justice into consideration and formulate relevant compensation measures to make up for farmers' losses.