North-South Dialogue on Agricultural Land Protection and Rural Development - 11th Rural Vision Conference

Co-hosted by the Kaohsiung Cimei Community College, Tainan Xinhua Community College and Beimen Community College, the 11th Rural Vision Conference was held on the 23rd and 24th at Guanshan Hall in Meinong, Kaohsiung, focusing on the difficulties of farmland use and discussing the issues of rural development at the current stage, bringing together the Yilan Guard Yilan Workshop, agricultural officials, environmental organizations and community groups from all sectors for discussion.

Guo Zhaonan, director of Xinhua Community College, mentioned that rural workers at community colleges in southern Taiwan share a sense of worsening rural development conditions, including water resource development, the step-by-step expansion of the Southern Taiwan Science Park, and the legalization of illegal factories in agricultural zones on the spot, which are squeezing the area of agricultural land. More and more farmland is under pressure to be converted to other uses. In response to the issues of farmland and rural development, the three community colleges invited all sectors to express their views on the problem of farmland use.

They believe farmland has already become a factor in the decline of Taiwan's agriculture, and skyrocketing speculative land prices mean that young people who want to keep farming cannot obtain farmland, forming a threshold for agricultural revival. This problem must be solved before rural areas can have a new way forward. While "protecting farmland," there is also a need to "create agricultural benefits" in order to channel the problem.

During the comprehensive discussion, Qiu Jinghui, secretary-general of the Meinong Love Township Association, reviewed how local groups in Meinong began with the anti-reservoir movement, bringing the strength of young people back to the local area to do community work. Now some young friends have created new forms of agricultural cultural and creative businesses, and the next stage is to bring in the energy of art to revitalize rural areas anew.

Li Hanlin, a researcher at the Citizens' Earth Foundation, reminded that local governments lack long-term planning for agricultural zones and land used for agriculture. For example, in the Kaohsiung City Government's report, it can be seen that industry and economics units still continue to use planning and development methods to push for the conversion of farmland to other uses. In particular, because Taiwan Sugar Corporation land is complete in scale and easy to obtain, development methods often give priority to Taiwan Sugar Corporation land, but in reality this is still sacrificing agriculture and nibbling away at farmland for development.

In his concluding remarks, Zhang Zhengyang, principal of Cimei Community College, summarized that the main purpose of the Rural Vision Conference is to analyze the current situation of rural areas and discuss rural development issues, and to propose new possible visions for rural areas. The issue of farmland must be built on a vision of autonomous rural development, taking into account the diverse values of rural life, production and ecology, so as to overturn and create a more equal urban-rural dialogue relationship.