Five-Year Checkup on Rural Regeneration: Everyone Wants a Share of the 150 Billion Fund
In Taiwan, China, from the central government to local governments, the past few years have all faced the predicament of fiscal tightening, and the NT$150 billion Rural Regeneration Fund has become a big treasury that every ministry and agency covets, with everyone wanting a share of the pie.
Last year (2015) in November, the Council of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Agency, in coordination with the Executive Yuan's "consumption stimulus measures," subsidized farmers in purchasing small agricultural machinery. The original budget was only NT$200 million, but on the first day of applications, farmers' associations across the country reported a flood of applications one after another. The Council of Agriculture was also very quick to act, extending the application period by three months in one go, and ultimately increasing the amount to NT$700 million. The source of the funding was the Rural Regeneration Fund, but this program did not restrict the qualifications of applying farmers, nor did it give priority to communities that had completed Rural Regeneration courses.
In addition, the Council of Agriculture's Counseling Division, which oversees leisure agriculture, marketing and promotion, and rural manpower, also has some of its funding from the Rural Regeneration Fund, such as the "Top 100 Young Farmers Counseling Program" and the local specialty cuisine class "Field Mom," among others. The Soil and Water Conservation Bureau initially estimated that the Rural Regeneration Fund allocated to the Counseling Division is about NT$500 million per year.
Although the Counseling Division's operations are similar to the goal of revitalizing industry through Rural Regeneration, Lin Chang-li, deputy director-general of the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, admitted frankly that some government departments' programs should still be funded from their own official budgets in order to be sustainable; otherwise, once the Rural Regeneration Fund is gone in the future, the programs may not be able to continue.
Besides their own people, local governments under financial strain are even more eager to find some connection to Rural Regeneration. One Rural Regeneration consultant said that some waterways belong to local governments or irrigation associations, but local governments will ask communities to submit their own plans to the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau for repairs.
Other central ministries and agencies are no less eager. Some communities have asked to use the Rural Regeneration Fund to install simple tap water facilities, build community basketball courts and volleyball courts, and so on. One community in Taitung hoped to underground its power lines in order to create an open landscape like the "Brown Boulevard" in Chishang, while also developing hot air balloon tourism. Taipower hoped the Rural Regeneration Fund would cover half the cost; because time was urgent and local residents could not afford the expense, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau ultimately allocated NT$2.5 million.
Lin Chang-li did not deny that indeed many ministries and agencies want the Rural Regeneration Fund, but the funding approved by the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau must all conform to industrial revitalization, promotion of community development, and so on, and the competent authority will be asked to handle it first, unless the competent authority's funding is insufficient or the matter is very urgent, in which case the Rural Regeneration Fund will be used.
However, amid a situation in which both central and local authorities are crying poverty, how should the Rural Regeneration Fund, this handy "tool man," be used so that money is spent where it is most needed and duplication is avoided? Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Pei-hui, who has long followed Rural Regeneration issues, believes that the use of the fund should be brought back to the Council of Agriculture headquarters, because the essence of Rural Regeneration is rural development, involving farmers' livelihoods, living functions, rural industry, and so on, as well as external benefits such as landscape and water resources. None of these can be solved by the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau using an engineering mindset. The Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, the Planning Division, and the Agriculture and Food Agency should be peer units, and cross-domain coordination should be carried out by the council headquarters. (Series to be continued)