Home › General News › Article

Farmland factory demolition survey: Changhua and others willing to cooperate, Pingtung still in discussion, Tainan refuses to answer

General News By Emily Carter 0 views

(Update, November 8, 2017: After the original article was published, the Tainan City Economic Development Bureau replied that it fully understands the central government policy. Although operators and workers may push back, in order to prevent the factory problem from spreading and to protect farmland safety, it is willing to cooperate with the special project for demolition. See the questionnaire for details.)

The central government wants to demolish newly built illegal factories on farmland

More than 130,000 sites of farmland across Taiwan have been occupied by illegal factories. To ensure that farmland is no longer lost and to deter new factories from being built on farmland, the Council of Agriculture requires local governments to demolish illegal factories newly built on farmland after May 20, 2016. In September this year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced 34 cases in the first wave to be demolished (later revised to 17). The first demolition list was distributed across 8 counties and cities, with Changhua County having the most (Note 1). After the demolition list was announced, the Changhua County Government said it could not cooperate with the central government and wanted to change the baseline for demolishing farmland factories in Changhua County to "September 12, 2017."

To help society understand whether local governments are willing to cooperate with the central government in implementing this action plan to report and demolish newly added illegal factories on farmland immediately, the Taiwan Environmental Information Association conducted telephone interviews with the 8 county and city governments where the cases to be demolished are located, to investigate local views on the plan and willingness to cooperate, including New Taipei City, Tainan City, Kaohsiung City, Hsinchu County, Changhua County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County and Pingtung County, 8 counties and cities in total (Note 2). The results are as follows:

1. Do they understand the contents of the Executive Yuan's special project to "demolish newly added illegal factories on farmland," such as funding, manpower and administrative operating procedures?

Note 2: The county and city units contacted for telephone interviews were respectively: New Taipei City Economic Development Department, Tainan City Public Works Bureau, Kaohsiung City Public Works Bureau, Hsinchu County Public Works Office, Changhua County Construction Office, Chiayi County Economic Development Office, Yunlin County Construction Office, Pingtung County Urban and Rural Development Office.