Wastewater treatment is the lifeblood of rural sustainability, and female farmer Abao invites you to join in
Text / Female Farmer A-Bao
Rural landscapes are fragmented, there is no sewage treatment, and the countryside is polluted
Before our eyes, vast stretches of fertile farmland are growing not grain but farmhouses; before our eyes, farming friends who tend the soil with care cannot put down roots on a single plot of land, and again and again, as land is listed for sale, they become "shifting cultivation" farmers... before our eyes, there is clearly no sewage sewer plan, so people can only use agricultural irrigation canals to "attach discharge" (release sewage), and the farming areas that have implemented separation of irrigation and drainage are very few... before our eyes, the rural landscape is cut into fragments....
The consequence of many people's romantic longing to live "in the middle of the fields" is more and more "fields in the middle" surrounded by farmhouses... before our eyes, people enjoying hot springs begin to care about how many degrees the water temperature of Jiaoxi hot springs has dropped, and the media immediately makes a big fuss, while farmers who care about irrigation water quality can only silently dig wells or relocate, but even more people still do not know they should care...
After the Xueshan Tunnel opened to traffic, farmhouses on the Lanyang Plain sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain. Many people merely lament that Yilan's rural scenery is disappearing, yet they do not know that beyond the change in landscape, farmhouses also hide how many problems that future generations may be unable to handle! These include speculation in land prices, which breeds another generation of "tillers who own no land" (cannot afford to buy ~), including the inertia of conventional thinking in which renting farmland is constrained in many ways by landlords, making it hard to carry out friendly farming methods; including large-scale filling and impermeable paving affecting surface seepage and groundwater veins, and even including hidden worries about farmhouse waste treatment:
Not to mention that sewer planning exists only in urban planning districts, and system construction is slow. Taking Yilan County, ranked sixth nationwide, as an example, the current sewer connection rate is only about 28%. Planning for non-urban planning districts is still far off, let alone the fact that scattered farmhouses are distributed in irregular point patterns. The length of pipelines that would need to be excavated and the magnitude of the engineering works would create an enormous financial burden. If sewers are not built, the irrigation and drainage systems of water canals are quite incomplete, and often the upstream drainage ditch is also the downstream irrigation ditch, while according to modern people's living habits, the substances contained in domestic sewage cannot but make one worried...
Exactly how can the new farming generation (the group truly capable of transforming agriculture's constitution) obtain genuine control over farmland under the situation where farmland is priced as building land? Exactly where should the wastewater from farmhouses scattered across the fields go? What kind of environmental ethics should people who want to live on land that produces food have?...
Sewage treatment is the lifeline of sustainable rural areas, please join in
Recently, Taoyuan and Changhua countiesfarmhouse "attached discharge"caused irrigation water pollution problems, drawing attention from all sectors, and the Yilan County Farmland Irrigation Association also suspended attached discharge applications, blocking construction projects, yet came under considerable pressure!This public legal entity that governs the large and small water veins of rural areas can be called the guardian of agriculture's lifeline, and raising the flag in Yilan to initiate discussion of this issue is even more a brave act. This seminar on 7/3 is hoped to arouse deeper public concern about the farmhouse issue. If you also have friends around you who care about this issue, you are welcome to forward the message.
Time:July 3, 2013 (ROC year 102) 9:00~11:30 AM
Location: Yilan County Farmland Irrigation Association(No. 65, Xianzheng 9th Street, Yilan City, Yilan County)
Topics:
(1) The impact of water quality and soil on the safety of agricultural products
(2) Reflections on the loss of farmland and the impact on the agricultural production environment caused by changes in landforms
(3) Deliberation on feasible measures for the Irrigation Association to protect the agricultural production environment: accepting sewage
attached discharge requires secondary ecological purification facilities and a two-stage consent measure
Registration: please reply to A-Bao at [email protected] and note your name, organization, title, address, and telephone (required by the organizer)
Or by June 27, reply directly to: "Yilan County Farmland Irrigation Association" (fax: 9252190 or e-mail: [email protected]) Que Chaogen (03)925-5000 ext. 251 mobile 0919-900836
Further reading --
(United Daily News5/3) Irrigation association refuses attached discharge, construction projects stalled Factories fear shutdownhttp://www.udn.com/2013/5/3/NEWS/NATIONAL/NAT5/7872343.shtml
(Liberty Times 5/11) Yilan suspends attached discharge applications; blue camp criticizes unconstitutionality, green camp shows understanding