Agricultural Basic Law legislation restarts, Council of Agriculture draft released and to be sent to the Executive Yuan in February
Known as the "agricultural constitution," the Agricultural Basic Law has been under legislative debate for 10 years. The new government declared upon taking office last year that it would push hard to draft the Agricultural Basic Law. It is understood that the Council of Agriculture had already produced an initial draft internally last month, and on the 22nd and 23rd of that month invited experts and scholars to convene a forum. Because opinions at the forum were divided, the Council of Agriculture stated, "We are working hard to incorporate different opinions into the draft, and if all goes smoothly we will try our best to send it to the Executive Yuan by the end of February for cross-ministerial discussion." (For the Council of Agriculture's initial draft version, click here)
The Agricultural Basic Law was delayed for many years and made a comeback in 2016
In response to the impact Taiwan, China faces from globalization and liberalization, as early as 2006 our country's then-Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator Yin Ling-ying, together with scholars including Ding Wen-yu, Wu Rong-jie and Hu Zhong-yi, jointly proposed the first version of the Agricultural Basic Law. Subsequently, the Executive Yuan version and versions from various Legislative Yuan caucuses and legislators all emerged, but the law was always left sitting in the Legislative Yuan and delayed for many years.
It was not until 2009 that the Executive Yuan, on the grounds that most articles of the Agricultural Basic Law were highly related to or duplicated the Agricultural Development Act, withdrew the Executive Yuan version of the draft, drawing criticism from all sectors, and discussion of the Agricultural Basic Law thus made a comeback.
At present, only legislator Su Chen-ching has proposed a draft Agricultural Basic Law in the Legislative Yuan. DPP legislator Tsai Pei-hui, who has long focused on agricultural issues, is drafting one and is expected to propose it after the Legislative Yuan opens its session in February. It is understood that KMT legislator Wang Hui-mei will also draft a version to participate in the discussion.
The Council of Agriculture's initial draft emphasizes agricultural sustainability and its relevance to everyone
The Council of Agriculture's Agricultural Basic Law had already produced an initial draft last month. Huang Chen-te, deputy director of the Council of Agriculture's Planning Department, said that in the past agricultural development placed too much emphasis on the "production side," but in fact agriculture is closely tied to all citizens. In addition to providing food, agriculture also has multiple values such as natural resources, cultural and ecological landscapes, and homeland security. Therefore agriculture cannot be treated merely as an industry. The spirit of the Council of Agriculture's version focuses on "agriculture should be everyone's business," and it referred to Japan's Basic Law on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and other national regulations in its discussions.
Huang Chen-te said that the process of agricultural development gives rise to problems of some resources being contested, such as land and water, and these should be highlighted through the Agricultural Basic Law. The importance of agriculture to national development needs to be expressed through this law, including how non-agricultural agencies should face agricultural development and what the division of labor between central and local governments is, all of which are emphasized in the current draft.
In addition, the current Council of Agriculture version also incorporates direct payment measures into the initial draft of the Agricultural Basic Law, hoping to use them to stabilize farmers' incomes, ensure food security, and promote structural adjustment of the industry, guiding agriculture toward friendly operating methods. In addition, content that was less often included in discussions of the Agricultural Basic Law in the past, including promoting food and agriculture education, agricultural insurance, and responsible fishing, has also been included in the planning of this initial draft.
Voices from the public: The Agricultural Basic Law's positioning is unclear, and how will other regulations be integrated?
At present, the Council of Agriculture held expert forums on December 22 and 23 respectively to collect suggestions from all sectors on the Council of Agriculture's initial draft. Huang Chen-te admitted that opinions were somewhat divided. Among them, whether the formulation of the Agricultural Basic Law should be programmatic in emphasis, clearly discussing the grand principles of agricultural development, or should be detailed enough to include relevant operational regulations, including how much budget the state should allocate to agricultural departments each year and what kind of farmland use is called a violation, remains to be discussed internally.
Chen Ping-hsuan, deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Rural Front, who once participated in the expert forums, said that the Council of Agriculture is willing to take on the legislation of the Agricultural Basic Law and to begin communicating with the public before the draft comes out, which is very commendable. However, the current version is too crude, much like a grand collection of the Council of Agriculture's administrative ideas, with only declaratory text but no concrete methods or timetables for implementation, and it could easily fall into the problems currently encountered in the implementation of the Environmental Education Basic Law or the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law.
Chen Ping-hsuan said that a basic law does not mean it cannot contain operational text. For example, Article 8 of the Constitution, concerning arrest and restriction of personal freedom, stipulates that a person must be transferred to a prosecutorial agency within 24 hours, which is a very practical case. Therefore operational approaches can be layered: very important ones should be incorporated into the basic law, and secondary ones can refer to the Spatial Planning Act, clearly specifying in the legal provisions that subsidiary laws must be formulated within a certain number of years.
Chen Ping-hsuan further said that the Council of Agriculture's current initial draft of the Agricultural Basic Law also commits a serious error, namely unclear positioning. If it is to be the highest-level law, then how the currently highly controversial higher-level law, the Agricultural Development Act, should be sunset or how it should be amended after the Agricultural Basic Law comes out should all be written into the articles.
In addition, it is understood that at the two forums, experts and scholars including National Taiwan University professor of agronomy Guo Hua-ren and National Chengchi University professor of land economics Xu Shi-rong all mentioned that the Council of Agriculture's current initial draft lacks a mechanism to review the country's overall agricultural development direction within a certain time limit, and that a definite time should be clearly set.
Chen Chi-jui, section chief of the Planning Section of the Council of Agriculture's Planning Department, said that the Agricultural Basic Law belongs to the higher-level law for our country's agricultural development and is highly declaratory. At present, the Council of Agriculture is internally inclined to persuade all sectors to let detailed content be set out in separate special laws, and to precisely set out the timetable for formulating special laws in the Agricultural Basic Law itself, so that the declaratory content can be implemented.
The Council of Agriculture's draft version may be sent to the Executive Yuan as early as the end of February
At present, the Council of Agriculture is organizing the opinions collected from the expert forums and thinking about how to incorporate them into the draft. Huang Chen-te said he hopes that by the end of February the initial draft content can pass the Council of Agriculture's internal regulations committee and be sent to the Executive Yuan.
As for whether public forums will be held externally or in various places? Huang Chen-te said that the bill is still at the draft formulation stage, and priority is being given to collecting opinions in the form of inviting experts, while more open public forums are not currently under consideration. However, if after organizing the expert opinions from these two sessions there is still disagreement, it is not ruled out that another expert forum will be convened for discussion. Only after the Executive Yuan version's content is finalized will the Council of Agriculture publicly disclose the detailed draft content.