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Taiwan’s Drought Pits Chip Makers In opposition to Farmers

Taiwan's Drought Pits Chip Makers Against Farmers

HSINCHU, Taiwan – Chuang Cheng-deng’s humble rice farm is a stone’s throw from the nerve center of Taiwan’s computer chip industry, whose products power much of the world’s iPhones and other devices.

This year, Mr. Chuang pays the prize for the economic importance of his high-tech neighbors. Taiwan has been hit by drought and crawling to save water for homes and factories, and has stopped irrigation on tens of thousands of acres of farmland.

The authorities compensate the producers for the loss of income. However, 55-year-old Chuang fears that the thwarted harvest will lead customers to seek other suppliers, which could mean years of poor revenue.

“The government uses money to shut the farmers’ mouths,” he said, studying his parched brown fields.

Officials call Taiwan’s drought the worst in more than half a century. And it depicts the tremendous challenges associated with hosting the island’s semiconductor industry, which is an increasingly indispensable hub in the global supply chains for smartphones, automobiles, and other cornerstones of modern life.

Chip makers use a lot of water to clean their factories and wafers, the thin silicon disks that form the basis of the chips. And with global semiconductor supplies already being weighed down by soaring demand for electronics, the added uncertainty about Taiwan’s water supply is unlikely to allay concerns about the tech world’s reliance on the island, and particularly on a chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

More than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chip manufacturing capacity is in Taiwan and operated by TSMC, which makes chips for Apple, Intel, and other big names. The company announced last week that it would invest $ 100 billion over the next three years to increase capacity, which is likely to further strengthen its preeminent market presence.

The drought has not affected production so far, according to TSMC. With Taiwan’s rainfall becoming unpredictable despite the growth of the tech industry, the island must make ever greater efforts to maintain the flow of water.

For the past few months the government has flown planes and burned chemicals to sow the clouds over the reservoirs. A seawater desalination plant has been built in Hsinchu to house TSMC’s headquarters, as well as a pipeline connecting the city to the rainier north. It has directed the industry to reduce usage. In some places it has lowered the water pressure and cut the supply for two days a week. Some companies, including TSMC, have been pulling in truckloads of water from other areas.

The most comprehensive measure, however, has been to stop irrigation, which affects 183,000 acres of arable land, roughly one-fifth of Taiwan’s irrigated land.

“TSMC and these semiconductors don’t feel it at all,” said Tian Shou-shi, 63, a rice farmer in Hsinchu. “We farmers just want to be able to earn an honest living.”

In an interview, Taiwan Water Resources Agency’s assistant director Wang Yi-feng defended the government’s policies, saying the dry spell means crops will be poor even with access to irrigation. Redirecting scarce water to farms instead of factories and homes would be “lose-lose,” he said.

When asked about farmers’ water problems, a TSMC spokeswoman, Nina Kao, said it was “very important for every industry and business” to use water efficiently and noted TSMC’s involvement in a project to improve irrigation efficiency .

That Taiwan, one of the rainiest places in developed countries, should not have water is a paradox that borders on tragedy.

Much of the water used by the residents is deposited by the summer typhoons. But the storms also pour soil from Taiwan’s mountainous terrain into its reservoirs. This has gradually reduced the amount of water that reservoirs can hold.

The rains are also very different from year to year. Not a single typhoon landed in the rainy season last year, the first time since 1964.

Taiwan last stopped large-scale irrigation in 2015 and 2004 to save water.

“If the same conditions reappear in two or three years, we can say, ‘Ah, Taiwan has definitely entered an era of great water scarcity,” said You Jiing-yun, professor of civil engineering at National Taiwan University wait and see. “

In 2019, the TSMC facilities in Hsinchu used 63,000 tons of water per day, or more than 10 percent of the supply from two local reservoirs, Baoshan and Baoshan Second Reservoir, according to the company. TSMC recycled more than 86 percent of the water from its manufacturing processes this year, saving 3.6 million tons more than last year by stepping up recycling and taking other new measures. But that amount is still small next to the 63 million tons consumed at the Taiwanese plants in 2019.

Mr. Chuang’s business partner at his Hsinchu farm, Kuo Yu-ling, does not like demonizing the chip industry.

“If Hsinchu Science Park wasn’t as developed as it is today, we wouldn’t be in business,” said Ms. Kuo, 32, referring to the city’s main industrial area. TSMC engineers are important customers for their rice, she said.

But it is also wrong, said Ms. Kuo, to accuse farmers of devouring water while contributing little economically.

“Can’t we account fairly and precisely how much water farms use and how much water industry uses, and not constantly stigmatize agriculture?” She said.

The “biggest problem” behind Taiwan’s water problems is that the government is keeping water tariffs too low, said Wang Hsiao-wen, a professor of hydraulic engineering at National Cheng Kung University. This encourages waste.

Households in Taiwan use around 75 gallons of water per person every day, government figures show. Most Western Europeans use less than that, although Americans use more, according to the World Bank.

Mr. Wang of the Water Resources Agency said, “Adjusting water prices is having a major impact on more vulnerable groups in society. So we are extremely cautious about adjustments. ”Taiwan’s prime minister said last month that the government would consider adding fees to 1,800 water-intensive factories.

Lee Hong-yuan, a professor of hydraulic engineering who previously served as Taiwanese interior minister, also blames a bureaucratic quagmire that makes it difficult to build new wastewater recycling plants and modernize the pipeline network.

“Other small countries are all extremely flexible,” said Lee, “but we have the operating logic of a big country.” He believes this is because Taiwan’s government was established decades ago after the Chinese Civil War with the aim of ruling all of China. It has since lost that ambition, but not the bureaucracy.

Taiwan’s southwest is both an agricultural heartland and an emerging industrial hub. TSMC’s most modern chip facilities are located in the southern city of Tainan.

The nearby Tsengwen Reservoir has shrunk to a swampy stream in some places. Along a scenic strip known as Lovers’ Park, the bottom of the reservoir has become a vast moonscape. According to the government, the water volume is around 11.6 percent of the capacity.

In farming towns near Tainan, many growers said they were content, at least for the time being, to live on the government cent. They clear the weeds from their fallow fields. They drink tea with friends and go on long bike rides.

But they also count on their future. The Taiwanese public appears to have decided that growing rice is less important than semiconductors to both the island and the world. Heaven – or at least greater economic forces – seem to be telling farmers that it is time to find other work.

“Fertilizer is getting more and more expensive. Pesticides are getting more and more expensive, ”said Hsieh Tsai-shan, 74, a rice farmer. “Being a farmer really is the worst.”

Quiet farmland surrounds the village of Jingliao, which became a popular tourist spot after a documentary film about the changing lives of farmers.

There’s only one cow left in town. It spends its days attracting visitors and not plowing fields.

“Here, 70 counts as young,” said Yang Kuei-chuan, 69, a rice farmer.

Both of Mr. Yang’s sons work for industrial companies.

“If Taiwan had no industry and relied on agriculture, we might all have starved to death by now,” said Yang.

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Biden Administration Ramps Up Debt Aid Program to Assist Black Farmers

Biden Administration Ramps Up Debt Relief Program to Help Black Farmers

Rep. James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who played an influential role in securing the party’s presidential nomination, was also a key voice in highlighting the black farmers’ experience and helping drive the incentive regulations forward, the staff said of Congress.

Funding aims to address longstanding discrimination issues in the Department of Agriculture – specifically, the refusal to give black farmers the same access to capital that helped white farmers overcome during difficult times in history. Minority farmers have faced other problems, such as lack of access to legal services that complicate the legacy of farms and lack of public investment in rural communities and reserves, including water supplies, roads, and transportation to produce farm produce to bring to the market.

These factors resulted in significant land loss. While the number of farmers in the United States has declined sharply over the last century as farms became mechanized and more people found work in factories and offices, black farmers suffered disproportionately.

According to the Department of Agriculture, the United States had 925,708 black farmers in 1920, which is 14 percent of the country’s farmers. However, as of 2017, only 35,470 of the country’s more than two million farms were operated by black producers, representing 1.7 percent.

Joe Patterson, 70, whose family has farmed the Mississippi Delta for decades, said discriminatory credit had put many black farmers around him out of business over the years and resulted in some lean times for his own family.

Frequently asked questions about the new stimulus package

How high are the business stimulus payments in the bill and who is entitled?

The stimulus payments would be $ 1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $ 1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $ 75,000 or less. For householders, the adjusted gross income should be $ 112,500 or less, and for married couples filing together, that number should be $ 150,000 or less. To be eligible for a payment, an individual must have a social security number. Continue reading.

What Would the Relief Bill do for Health Insurance?

Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become much cheaper. Under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, COBRA generally lets someone who loses a job purchase coverage through their previous employer. But it’s expensive: under normal circumstances, a person must pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the full COBRA premium from April 1 to September 30. An individual who qualified for new employer-based health insurance elsewhere before September 30th would lose their eligibility for free coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would also be ineligible. Continue reading

What would the child and dependent care tax credit bill change?

This loan, which helps working families offset the cost of looking after children under the age of 13 and other dependents, would be significantly extended for a single year. More people would be eligible and many recipients would get a longer break. The bill would also fully refund the balance, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill were zero. “This will be helpful to people on the lower end of the income spectrum,” said Mark Luscombe, chief federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Continue reading.

What changes to the student loan are included in the invoice?

There would be a big one for people who are already in debt. You wouldn’t have to pay income taxes on canceled debts if you qualified for loan origination or cancellation – for example, if you were on an income-related repayment plan for the required number of years, if your school cheated on you, or if Congress or the Congress President is wiping $ 10,000 in debt for a large number of people. This would be the case for debts canceled between January 1, 2021 and the end of 2025. Read more.

What would the bill do to help people with housing?

The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility benefits to people who are struggling and at risk of being evicted from their homes. About $ 27 billion would be used for emergency rentals. The vast majority of these would replenish what is known as the Coronavirus Relief Fund created by CARES law and distributed through state, local, and tribal governments, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. This is on top of the $ 25 billion made available through the aid package passed in December. In order to receive financial support that could be used for rent, utilities and other housing costs, households would have to meet various conditions. Household income cannot exceed 80 percent of area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or residential instability, and individuals would be at risk due to the pandemic. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, assistance could be granted for up to 18 months. Lower-income families who have been unemployed for three months or more would receive priority support. Continue reading.

“When it all came down to this, it was a lack of funds that kept the black farmers down,” said Mr. Patterson, speaking on the phone from the cab of a tractor he’d stopped by the roadside. “If we had the same investments as the other farmers, a lot of black farmers would still be farming at this point.”

He added, “But because they didn’t have these resources, it got worse and worse every year.”

Anthony Daniels, a Democrat in Alabama’s legislature who serves on the board of directors of One Country Project, a democratic group focused on rural issues, said many black farmers still suffer from high levels of debt and that the incentive provisions would help them Repay loans and related taxes.

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Business

Pay farmers to chop carbon footprint

Pay farmers to cut carbon footprint

Fourth generation rancher Loren Poncia made Stemple Creek Ranch carbon positive. He has implemented rotary cattle grazing systems that allow the soil and grass to recover, put compost on pastures, and planted chicory that aerates the soil.

Courtesy Paige Green

President Joe Biden has urged U.S. farmers to lead the way in offsetting greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change – a goal that fourth generation rancher Loren Poncia set out to achieve over a decade ago.

Despite being in the beef sector, which is a huge contributor to global warming, Poncia has made its northern California ranch one of the few carbon positive cattle farms in the country.

“It’s a win-win – for the environment and for our paperback,” said Poncia, who introduced carbon farming practices through a partnership with the Marin Carbon Project.

Experts estimate that through regenerative farming practices, farmers around the world can sequester enough of the carbon to avert the worst effects of climate change. Research suggests that removing carbon already in the atmosphere and replenishing the soil could lead to 10% carbon depletion worldwide. The United Nations has warned that efforts to contain global emissions without drastic changes in global land use and agriculture will be neglected.

The Poncia ranch is sequestering more carbon than is released by processes like rotary cattle grazing systems, which allow the soil and grass to recover. It involves applying compost to pastures instead of chemical fertilizers to avoid tillage, build worm farms, and plant chicory to aerate the soil. Such climate-friendly projects have enabled Poncia to grow more grass and produce more beef.

“If we as a world want to undo the damage done, it is through agriculture and food sustainability,” said Poncia. “We are excited and positive about the future.”

While some farmers, ranchers, and foresters have already adopted sustainable practices that capture existing carbon and store it in the soil, others are concerned about up-front costs and uncertain yields that can vary by state and farm.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently said it would encourage farmers to adopt such sustainable practices. And more and more researchers and companies have started to better quantify and manage the carbon stored in the soil.

USDA pushes for carbon cultivation

Tackling climate change has become a matter of survival for American farmers who have suffered great losses from floods and droughts that have become more frequent and more destructive across the country.

In 2019, farmers lost tens of thousands of acres in historic floods. And NASA scientists report that rising temperatures have pushed the western United States into the worst decade-long drought in the last millennium.

In the United States alone, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that agriculture causes more than 10.5% of greenhouse gas emissions to warm the planet.

As a result, the Biden government now plans to steer $ 30 billion in agricultural aid from the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation to pay farmers to implement sustainable practices and capture carbon in their soil.

This file photo dated Monday, March 18, 2019 shows flood and storage tanks underwater on a farm along the Missouri River in rural Iowa north of Omaha, Neb.

AP Photo | Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management

Biden’s candidate for USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who has vowed to fulfill Biden’s broader plan to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050, said the money could be used to create new markets that encourage producers to do so To fix carbon in the soil.

Former President Donald Trump previously used these funds to save farmers who were harmed by his trade wars with China, Mexico and Canada that lowered commodity prices.

Using the CCC money to create a carbon bank may not require Congressional approval and agricultural lobby groups are expected to convince Congress to expand the fund.

“It is a great tool for us to create a structure that will inform future farm bills of what is promoting carbon sequestration, what is promoting precision farming, what is promoting soil health and regenerative farming practices,” said Vilsack upon his Senate confirmation this month Listen.

Vilsack, who served as President Barack Obama’s Agriculture Secretary for eight years, has also asked Congress to set up an advisory group of farmers to help build a carbon market and ensure farmers get the benefits.

The government’s drive to promote on-farm carbon sequestration could support an emerging on-farm emissions reduction market and the technological advances that help farmers improve soil health and participate in carbon trading markets.

An emerging market

Some farmers have partnered with non-profit environmental and political groups to work on environmental sustainability. The movement was also increasingly supported by private companies.

Indigo Ag, a start-up advocating regenerative farming practices, said companies like Barclays, JPMorgan Chase and Shopify have committed to buying agricultural carbon credits that will help farmers with transition costs.

Chris Harbourt, global director of carbon at Indigo Ag, said the company is working with growers to remove financial barriers during the transition and provide training on implementing regenerative farming practices like growing cover crops off-season or switching to no-till crops to offer.

“Growers who use regenerative practices see benefits that go well beyond financial ones,” said Harbourt. “The soil is healthier and more resilient, which creates more opportunities for profitable years, even in difficult weather conditions.”

More of CNBC environment::
Biden’s climate agenda will face major obstacles with an evenly divided Senate
Climate change has cost the US billions of dollars in flood damage

Erik Fyrwald, CEO of Syngenta, a Switzerland-based seed and crop protection company, said government policies must provide appropriate incentives for farmers to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture.

“The incentives must be sufficient and reliable enough to give farmers the confidence to make the necessary investments to implement these practices on their farm,” said Fyrwald.

Poncia, who has twice received government funding from the California Healthy Soil Program to implement sustainable practices on his ranch, hopes the administration can provide enough support to agriculture so that other people can achieve similar results.

“Agriculture wants to support this movement, but it needs help, education and the ability to reduce the risk,” said Poncia. “If the government supports the farmers who get good results, everyone else will follow.”

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World News

Why India’s Farmers Are Protesting

Why India's Farmers Are Protesting

At least one protester was killed and 300 police officers injured after tens of thousands of farmers, including many tractors, took to the streets of New Delhi on Tuesday to demand the repeal of controversial new agricultural laws.

After months of sustained but peaceful demonstrations on the outskirts of the city, farmers staged the city’s Republic Day holiday, clashed with the police, destroyed barricades and stormed the Red Fort, a 400-year-old landmark. In addition to the police, many demonstrators were injured.

On Wednesday, the day after the chaos, the peasants had returned to their camps on the outskirts of the city and pledged to continue their protest and to walk back to the Indian parliament in the city on Monday.

Many of the protesting farmers belong to the Sikh religious minority and come from the states of Punjab and Haryana. Farmers in other parts of the country held solidarity rallies.

Since November, thousands of farmers have camped outside the capital New Delhi, kept vigil in sprawling tent cities and threatened to enter the country if the farm laws were not lifted.

The protest has exposed the dire reality of inequality across much of the country.

More than 60 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people are still largely dependent on agriculture, even though the sector accounts for only about 15 percent of the country’s economic output. Their dependency only increased after the coronavirus pandemic hit the urban economy hard and sent millions of workers back to their villages. Debt and bankruptcies have led to high suicide rates for years.

The protesters challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his efforts to transform agriculture in India.

The protesters are calling for Mr. Modi to repeal recent agricultural laws, which would minimize the government’s role in agriculture and create more room for private investors. The government says the new laws will decouple farmers from private investment and bring growth. Farmers are skeptical, however, fearing that the removal of government protection, which they already believe to be insufficient, would turn them over to greedy companies.

Government support to farmers, which included guaranteed minimum prices for certain important crops, helped India overcome the hunger crisis of the 1960s. Since India has liberalized its economy in the past few decades, Modi, who wants the country’s economy to double by 2024, sees such a large role for the government as no longer sustainable.

However, farmers claim that despite the protection in place, they have problems. They say that market-friendly laws will ultimately eliminate regulatory support and leave it deprived as the weakened economy offers little chance of any other livelihood.

Thousands of protesting farmers flocked to New Delhi on Tuesday in what was expected as a peaceful protest during the holiday celebrations and a military parade overseen by the Prime Minister.

Some farmers broke off the main march and used tractors to dismantle police barriers. Many peasants carried long swords, tridents, sharp daggers, and battle axes – working, if largely ceremonial, weapons. Most protesters did not appear to be wearing masks despite the Covid-19 outbreak in India.

Police commanders deploy officers with assault rifles. They stood in the middle of the main streets and tear gas swirled around the crowd with their rifles. In some areas, video footage showed, police beat protesters with their batons to push them back.

Farmers claim the violence was fueled by the government and outside in order to derail their months of peaceful protests.

The peasants waved flags and mocked officers. They also broke through the Red Fort, the iconic palace that once served as the residence of the Mughal rulers of India, and hoisted a flag on the city walls that is often hoisted on Sikh temples.

Local TV channels showed farmers placing a protester’s body in the middle of a street. They claimed the man was shot dead, but police said he died when his tractor overturned.

The Indian government has temporarily suspended internet services in the areas that have been protesting for months, an interior ministry official confirmed.

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World News

Indian Farmers March Set for Republic Day

Indian Farmers March Set for Republic Day

NEW DELHI – Thousands of protesting farmers flocked to the Indian capital of New Delhi on Tuesday as their tractors pulled barricades apart, caused police to fire tear gas and marked a chaotic start to an event that had already been classified as direct Challenge to the government.

The protest against India’s new farm laws was due to begin at 12:00 noon local time to avoid disruption to the celebrations commemorating the holiday of the Republic of India in central Delhi. But the peasants began dismantling barricades about two hours earlier, amid some apparent confusion among protesters.

The protest had already threatened to stage the 72nd annual celebration of the beginning of the Indian constitution. Prime Minister Narendra Modi oversaw a lavish armed forces parade, but news channels showed surreal scenes of Mr Modi saluting officers while chaos erupted in parts of the city just a few kilometers away.

On the city’s border with the village of Ghazipur, where farmers have been camping in protest for months, tractors removed a shipping container that was blocking their route when the police stood by helplessly. Elsewhere, thick clouds of tear gas rose over approved marching routes as farmers on tractors, horses, and on foot violently began their rally lessons prematurely.

The farmers waved flags and mocked police officers, as TV news showed. Many carried long swords, tridents, sharp daggers, and battle axes – working, if largely ceremonial, weapons.

Indian television news showed smaller groups breaking off the approved routes, tipping over buses and violently clashing with overwhelmed police officers armed with bamboo sticks as they marched towards central Delhi. In the early afternoon, the Delhi police commanders had deployed officers with assault rifles. They stood in the middle of key streets and stared at the demonstrators with rifles pointed at the crowd.

Even so, the majority of the demonstrators stuck to the approved routes and avoided the city center. At one of the capital’s largest intersections, near the Indian Supreme Court in the heart of Delhi, farmers withdrew with tractors after police fired several volleys of tear gas.

“Once we make it in Delhi, we won’t be going anywhere until Modi repeals the law,” said Happy Sharma, a farmer from the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh, who was among 27 people riding a tractor truck.

The demonstration, after the central government failed in its desperate efforts to prevent the tractor march, dramatically showed how deeply the impasse with the farmers embarrassed Mr. Modi. Although he has emerged as India’s most dominant figure after his political opposition was crushed, the peasants have been tenaciously defiant.

In September, Mr Modi went through three parliamentary agriculture bills that he hopes will bring private investment into a sector that has been plagued by inefficiency and lack of money for decades. But farmers quickly stood up and said the government’s relaxation of regulations left them to the corporate giants who would take over their businesses.

As their protests grew in size and anger, and tens of thousands of farmers camped in the cold for two months and dozens of them died, the government has offered to amend some parts of the law to meet their demands. The country’s Supreme Court also stepped in and ordered the government to suspend the laws pending an agreement with farmers.

But the farmers say they will not stand in front of a lift, and they have started putting on the pressure. In addition to their tractor protest on Tuesday, they announced plans to march on foot to India’s parliament on February 1, when the country’s new budget is presented.

Tensions were high until Tuesday. Some officials claimed the protests had been infiltrated by insurgent elements who would resort to violence if the peasants could enter the city. Just days earlier, the peasant leaders brought before the media a young man whom they had allegedly arrested on suspicion of a conspiracy to shoot the leaders on Tuesday to disrupt the rally. None of the claims could be independently verified.

There was some confusion about the scope and size of the tractor march before it should begin. Reports in local media quoting Delhi police documents said the march would not begin until after the high-profile Republic Day parade in the heart of New Delhi culminated. The reports also say that the number of tractors and the length of their stay in the city were limited.

However, at a press conference on Monday, the farm managers said there are no time limits or restrictions on the number of tractors as long as they stick to the routes set by the Delhi police. Maps of the routes indicated a compromise between the farmers and the police, which could enable the demonstrators to enter the city but not to get near sensitive institutions of power.

The leaders said that about 150,000 tractors had been gathered at the borders of the capital for the march, that about 3,000 volunteers were trying to help the police keep order, and that 100 ambulances were on standby.

The farm leaders made statements to the demonstrators and repeatedly appealed for peace during the press conference.

“Remember, our aim is not to conquer Delhi, but to win the hearts of the people in this country,” read online instructions for protesters who were told not to carry weapons – “not even sticks “- and to avoid provocative slogans and banners.

“The hallmark of this agitation was that it was peaceful,” said Balbir Singh Rajewal, one of the movement’s main leaders. “My request to our peasant brothers and to our youth is that they keep this movement peaceful. The government is spreading rumors that the authorities have begun to mislead people. Be careful of that.

“If we stay peaceful, we have won. If we get violent, Modi will win. “

Jeffrey Gettleman and Hari Kumar contributed to the coverage.