Analysis of Effective Sustainable Farmland Management Policies: Chen Biyuan on How Mother Taiwan Should Respond

General News Jan 1, 1970By Emily Carter 0 views

By Chen Pi-yuan (a son of Yilan, director of Gaoyuan Real Estate Appraisers Joint Firm, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors MRICS)

"Mother is the mountain, mother is the sea, mother is the river, mother's name is Taiwan. Mother is conscience, mother is justice, mother is your spring."

Taiwan is our mother, and the land is dearest to us. Yet Taiwan's national development and transformation have made Taiwan's land environment, though ever more beautiful, also more sorrowful. However, since Chi Po-lin's passing, the presentation of environmental issues seems to have faded along with him, and environmental problems drift with the current.

Therefore, as we pursue national development and transformation, how we define the environment and how we build a sustainable environment is truly something the people of Taiwan, China should ponder today. This is especially true for Yilan County, which holds firmly to environmental values and agricultural policy.

Taiwan's farmland currently faces the following problems:

Taiwan's farmland resources, under the influence of rapid economic growth and urban sprawl, are constantly subject to illegal use and conversion and release. Some scholars hold that Taiwan's farmland currently faces the following problems:

1. Urban farmland:

(1) Lack of timely comprehensive review, making it impossible to understand the current state of urban farmland use and how to strengthen conservation and management measures (2) The positioning of agricultural zones in urban plans is vague, causing them to be regarded as reserve land for urban development, and thus threatened by conversion and development and illegal use, departing from the ideals of urban sustainability and sustainable use of farmland resources (3) Illegal use is severe (4) Pressure for conversion of agricultural zones in urban plans is great (5) Permitted use items are lax.

2. Non-urban farmland:

(1) Higher-level plans provide no effective guidance, causing farmland decisions to fail to take into account the overall regional development of farmland, so farmland resources cannot be used reasonably and effectively (2) The existing mechanism has not exerted its regulatory effect (3) The connection between zoning and permitted use items is unclear (4) Improper regulation of permitted use items causes farmland loss and farmland fragmentation (5) Illegal use is widespread and regulation is difficult.

In the past ten years, ownership of Yilan farmhouses has changed hands, with 30% of buyers coming from Taipei and New Taipei City

Urban sprawl is one of the reasons behind the residential conversion of farmland in Yilan County. According to scholarly research, the construction of freeways is the main cause of urban outward expansion and sprawl, because the improved accessibility of freeways allows populations in freeway suburbs to reach the city center quickly, reducing transaction costs and strengthening the force of urban sprawl. This reasoning has also been supported by relevant argumentation in Taiwan, China, which holds that there is a positive relationship between living circles with more interchanges and the increase in the sprawl index.

In June 2006, after the opening of the Xueshan Tunnel and National Highway No. 5, the Chiang Wei-shui Freeway, Yilan County became the first freeway to connect Taipei City with the Yilan area. It also caused the highly concentrated population of the greater Taipei area to sprawl into Yilan County. In particular, farmland prices in Yilan County are far lower than in the greater Taipei area, providing an opportunity for building farmhouses. Therefore, after the June 2006 opening in Yilan County, among the number of farmhouse ownership transfers between 2007 and March 2017, those whose acquirers had household registration in Taipei City and New Taipei City accounted for nearly 30% of the total number of transfer acquirers.

Yilan farmland transactions began soaring upward after 2000, and only fell slightly after the former county magistrate applied the brakes with policies such as "road-front and side-facing" in 2015; the changes over the years can be observed in the chart below (dynamic chart)

Yilan farmland is regarded as "reserve land for urban development"

Therefore, because of the incentive of demand from outside populations to build farmhouses for residence, Yilan County farmland is regarded as reserve land for urban development, and thus threatened by conversion and development and illegal use, departing from the ideals of urban sustainability and sustainable use of farmland resources, causing farmland to be lost through continuous informalization. Yet the paradox is that, because of the possibility of residential conversion, farmland becomes fragmented and prices soar, rather than being the scale farming operation needed for pure agricultural production and the supportable income land price.

Therefore, facing the gap between the price of farmland converted to residential use and the income price of farmland, it is inevitable that farmers or farmland owners cling to the farmhouse issue and are unwilling to use the land for agriculture, and there is an insoluble predicament.

Sustainable farmland policy, with reference to foreign policies

However, the use of farmland has long ceased to be a concept of traditional production. The farmland use regime has shifted from agricultural productivism to a multifunctional agricultural regime. That is, in addition to the primary function of producing food and clothing, agricultural activities can also shape landscapes, provide environmental benefits such as land protection, sustainable management of renewable natural resources and biodiversity, as well as socioeconomic vitality beneficial to many rural areas.

If, in addition to its primary function of producing food and clothing, it also has one or more functions, then agriculture is multifunctional. Therefore, the land value and functions of farmland can be divided into (1) production function; (2) work and living function; (3) tourism function; (4) spatial function; (5) ecological function.

Therefore, based on the exploration of sustainable development and the ecological maintenance of farmland, while also taking into account the maintenance of the property value of farmland owners, this becomes an issue under the topic of sustainable farmland development. In theory and in practice, foreign countries have related implementation policies, which are summarized as follows:

1. Acquisition of development rights

Transfer of development rights (TDRs) allows landowners to transfer the development rights of one parcel of land to another parcel. The United States developed a land development rights transfer program to carry out transfer of development rights for farmland, protected open space, forests and other land subject to development restrictions.

2. Purchase of agricultural conservation easement program

Because the United States faced the problem of suburbanization encroaching on farmland resources, with large amounts of important farmland rapidly converted and environmentally sensitive areas suffering from the sprawl of development destruction, in addition to enacting farmland protection policy laws, it began implementing the Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement program (PACE). This program provides relative compensation to farm operators who give up carrying out other development activities on their land.

The land exchange policy of the small town of Weyarn in Germany plans purchased land as national housing for youth rental, attracting young people to be willing to stay and develop in rural areas

[Japan Report] Japanese farmland is cheaper than Taiwan's; the Farmland Law guarantees farmland for agricultural use

Council of Agriculture slaps down the "Chin-te version farmhouse" again; Chen Chi-chung: without agriculture there is no farmhouse, and local governments have no authority to set a separate format

Yilan challenges the central government again! Farmhouse plus facilities can occupy 40% of farmland area; Chen Chi-chung: conflating the two does not conform to regulations

Standing at the crossroads of old and new agriculture, hold fast to Yilan's values or turn farmland into cash? | How to implement farmland for agricultural use?

German rural development experience exchange (3) Integrated rural development

Interview with Chen Chin-te 01: Slapping down the Council of Agriculture, the farmhouse "road-front and side-facing" is not law, farmers need not comply

Interview with Chen Chin-te 02: The location of farmhouses strangles rural development; who has the right to demand that farmers farm and let Taipei people come to see the pastoral scenery?

Interview with Chen Chin-te 03: If Taipei demolishes 1 percent of its illegal structures, I in Yilan will demolish illegal structures for you to see

Chen Chin-te attacks the central government over farmhouses; Chen Chi-chung: causing damage to farmland is illegal, Peng Tso-kwei severely criticizes it as inconceivable