Taiwan Sugar Land Development: Environmental Impact Assessment Only at 10 Hectares? National Development Council Recommends Loosening Restrictions on Prime Farmland

How should the environmental impact assessment (EIA) threshold for Taiwan Sugar Corporation land be set? The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has given advance notice of draft amendments to the sub-regulations under the EIA Act, planning that Taiwan Sugar land developments of 1 hectare or more must undergo the EIA procedure. Regarding this EIA threshold, the National Development Council (NDC) recently recommended adjusting the "1 hectare" threshold to "10 hectares," on the grounds that "Taiwan faces a window for industrial transformation, and regulatory loosening is an important foundational task."

Although no conclusion has yet been reached on how the EIA threshold should be set, both the Council of Agriculture (COA) and the EPA have stated that they "hope to protect prime farmland." Their stance is clear, but as for how to do it, the wisdom of both agencies is still being tested.

EPA: Taiwan Sugar farmland development of 1 hectare or more requires EIA; NDC: Too strict

Since the EPA gave advance notice this year of draft amendments to the sub-regulations under the EIA Act, the "Standards for Determining the Categories and Scope of Development Activities Subject to Environmental Impact Assessment," the clause on the "EIA threshold for Taiwan Sugar land development" has been hotly debated. According to the draft amendment given advance notice by the EPA in May, it explicitly states: "...given that the nature of the land released by Taiwan Sugar Corporation varies and not all of it is prime farmland, a proviso is added stipulating that below a certain scale, where the central agricultural authority determines that the land is not prime farmland and does not affect the integrity of the agricultural production environment, EIA may be exempted."

As for the "certain scale" referred to in the draft, Liu Tsung-yung, Director-General of the EPA's Department of Comprehensive Planning, stated that according to the planning under Articles 3 and 4 of the sub-regulations, for factories and industrial parks located on agricultural land in special agricultural zones, upon change of use, where the applied development area or cumulative development area reaches 1 hectare or more, an EIA must be conducted; and where the Taiwan Sugar land development area is under 1 hectare, with the consent of the COA, EIA may be exempted.

However, the NDC considered the EIA threshold regulation too strict. NDC Minister Chen Mei-ling recently suggested at an "Accelerating Investment in Taiwan" meeting that the "1 hectare" threshold be adjusted to "10 hectares." The EPA had originally planned to complete the draft's consultation, announcement, and amendment before the end of the year. With the NDC's remark, will the draft threshold be adjusted accordingly? And how can the loss of Taiwan Sugar's agricultural operation land and its conversion to non-agricultural operation land be avoided?