Without farmland there is no agriculture, and without agriculture there is no nation.

Text by Wu Jialing, a rice farmer in Yilan

The night before last, I learned that the chairman of the Council of Agriculture would be succeeded by Yilan County Magistrate Lin Tsung-hsien. To be honest, as someone farming in Yilan, I feel deeply worried. First, a magistrate who does not come from an agricultural county does not necessarily understand agriculture. Taiwan's agriculture has many long-standing, deeply entrenched problems, and they cannot be understood in four or eight years. Moreover, agriculture is only one item among the complex affairs of county governance. How much can one really understand? Second, during his tenure, Magistrate Lin Tsung-hsien approved the largest number of farmhouses. Although he later declared that he would mend the fold after the sheep had strayed and would regulate farmhouses, he started off vigorously but fizzled out at the end, which makes me unable to help but doubt his determination to regulate farmhouses.

Agriculture supporting industry, agriculture supporting housing, land broken up and cut apart

Taiwan's agriculture has long suffered from problems caused by mistaken policies, too numerous to count, and as someone farming in the countryside, I feel this very deeply. These problems absolutely cannot be removed by a single clean cut, like lancing an abscess. When farming cannot keep a family fed and clothed, and mainstream society belittles and even denies the value of agriculture, then when one can neither make a living nor obtain dignity, how can one not leave agriculture?

Everyone has read in textbooks about the policy of using agriculture to support industry. The surplus value of agriculture and rural areas was extracted by the industrial sector, causing a large rural population to move away. However, in recent years many people have moved one after another from cities to the countryside to farm. In this trend of young people returning to their hometowns, a breach has appeared in the conservative and closed countryside. This coming and going has meant that the countryside has begun to see people who love farming, rather than only farmers' children who spend their whole lives lamenting their own fate. A new vitality has been injected, and the body and soul of the countryside finally have a chance to develop healthily.

It is just a pity that mistaken policies remain. In 2000, the Agricultural Development Act was amended to allow people without farmer status to buy farmland. This in itself is not a big problem, but the problem is that the government had no management or restrictions at all, turning countless good fields into farmhouses. This mistaken amendment was like opening Pandora's box. Hot money from urban real estate speculation poured into the countryside. How could the simple countryside resist it?

No farmland, no agriculture. No agriculture, no nation

After the Agricultural Development Act was amended, it opened a back door wide, letting many monsters and demons into the countryside. The government must guard farmland plot by plot no matter what, so I make this painful appeal: in the process of agricultural workers coming in and going out, the government must do a good job of guidance, so that those who want to leave agriculture can leave without any worries, and those who want to farm can all find a position that suits them. Beyond that, farmland must be kept for agricultural use. Once farmland is destroyed and abandoned, once it is turned to concrete, restoring it to cultivation is almost impossible. Furthermore, without farmland, there is no point talking about agriculture. Farmland is the foundation of agriculture.

Therefore, respected new chairman of the Council of Agriculture, please use the administrative rank of the highest head of agriculture to properly guard farmland and fulfill what you said earlier: "We are mending the fold after the sheep have strayed; there is no question of starting from zero."

Once again: without farmland, there is no agriculture; without agriculture, it is not a nation.