The Taiwan Agricultural Academia-Industry Alliance (Taiwan 3A, 台灣農業產學聯盟) is getting ready to help solve China's agricultural problems through a joint program organized by several Taiwanese agricultural experts and a financial institution in Macau.
Wu Ming-ming (
The idea of getting Taiwanese experts to help China deal with its agricultural problems was proposed by the Macau branch of Delta Asia Financial Group, which took the initiative to get in touch with the council, Wu said.
"Council officials told us that the Macau financial institution would like to invest HK$500 million [US$64.2 million] in an agricultural development fund to help poor areas in China, and that it wanted us to provide the agricultural expertise and personnel," Wu said.
"We accepted the council's suggestion to participate as we considered it a meaningful job," he said.
" Not only will it relieve poverty in China, we also hope it can create a win-win situation in terms of cross-strait cooperation," he said.
The program was initially drawn up by Taiwan 3A and Stanley Au (
They chose Beihai in Guangxi Province, Meixian in Guangdong and Kunming in Yunnan for the pilot projects, Wu said.
While the exact details of the program will not be ironed out until Au's next visit to Taiwan in September, Wu said it will focus on three areas.
China has long been plagued by three agriculture-related problems -- agriculture, farmers and rural villages," he said.
"Based on Taiwan's agricultural development experience, I thought that Taiwan's agricultural experts could find some way to solve these problems," he said.
The first goal of the program will be to improve the low productivity of China's villages, enabling farmers to produce enough food to sustain their families, he said.
The second goal is to ensure food safety by teaching farmers about the proper use of pesticides and other chemicals that they use, he said.
The third goal will be to teach farmers to protect their environment and ecological resources, Wu said.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe