WTO: helpful or harmful?
- helpful
- harmful
- "W"- what?
0 voters
Straight from one affected by globalism:
(image from “Wu Mi Le” | “Let It Be” documentary)
WTO: Good or bad? Why or why not?
The common farmer here uses far too much pesticide on his crops and has scant concern if his fields are contamininated with factory run off so I appreciate the WTO bringing in affordable foreign produce. Until I can trust the integrity of the Taiwanese farmer I don’t give a shit if they are out out of business by trade.
While I think the statement is harsh I have to on some levels agree with you.
There is no denying that environmental concern for the effects after the immediate payoff are ignored, there has to be some culpability on the Goverments inability to Govern; i.e. pass some regulations regarding chemical use and alluvial contamination.
Furthermore I totally support trying to buy local to shore up the local economy what is one to do when the local product is questionable at best?
Tough call on all sides i think.
:s
Mucha Man wrote:
jwar reply:
What a cruel response.
So, you’ve verified the integrity of all the farmers of the produce brought in under the WTO? [edited after "some friendly advice]
Where are the statistics to support your position on the amount of pesticides used by Taiwanese farmers, that their lands are contaminated with run off, and that “the common farmer” doesn’t care anyway?
The WTO is an umbrella shaped organization. Those at the top take the cream from those at the bottom. Under the guise of being ‘organized’ the WTO, at a produce level, is essentially about protecting the needs of the rich by organizing the poor.
I believe that the WTO is supposed to be a force for good, but it has lined too many pockets that were already lined.
[quote=“jwar”]Muzha Man wrote:
The common farmer here uses far too much pesticide on his crops and has scant concern if his fields are contamininated with factory run off so I appreciate the WTO bringing in affordable foreign produce. Until I can trust the integrity of the Taiwanese farmer I don’t give a shit if they are out out of business by trade.
jwar reply:
What a cruel response.
So, you’ve verified the integrity of all the farmers of the produce brought in under the WTO? Oh, the WTO does that for you? They must love us and only want what is best for us. 
Where are the statistics to support your position on the amount of pesticides used by Taiwanese farmers, that their lands are contaminated with run off, and that “the common farmer” doesn’t care anyway?[/quote]
I don’t need to check their integrity as the foreign goods I buy come places like the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand where agricultural inspectors do their jobs and farms are in clean areas of the country that do not allow chemical factories and the like to be set up nearby.
About 5 years ago the EPA did a survey of rice fields in Taiwan. Several hundred or thousand (can’t remember which) hectares were closed because of heavy metal contamination. The culprit. Largely nearby factories. The EPA now has volunteers who patrol rivers and farmland to look for illegal dumping and HIDDEN pipes that pump factory effluence into fields and streams. Groundwater, often used to irragate crops is known to be polluted throughout the west coast, so we can reasonable infer that much of the produce is contaminated too.
When I first arrived in Taiwan 10 years ago I saw the factories beside rice fields in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, and Miaoli Counties and stopped eating rice.
Many people who have lived in the countryside will tell you that their families, like most, do not eat the produce they grow. They have a small section of the farm where they grow their own produce because they know they use too much pesticide on regular crops. The EPA has also complained over the years about the use of excess pesticides because it washes into rivers and pollutes watersheds. Do a web search and you’ll find various reports on the excessive use of pesticides in Asia.
My statement was not harsh, but I should have included factory owners in my condemnation. Farmers are often more ignorant than venal. However, consider the growing of betelnut in the mountains everywhere. The soil gets eroded and killer landslides every years wipe out the villages that grow the stuff in the first place. :loco: Look at all the fruit farms upstream from the Shimen Reservoir in Taoyuan. The water in the dam is hardly drinkable anymore because of the greed of local farmers.
Go to any farm and ask to see how they dispose of their waste. It’s straight into the rivers. In recent years the EPA has set up waste treatment plants around pig farms. They have found however that half the farmers don’t bother to treat their waste up claiming it is too much of a hassle. Do you remember how hard it was to get the pig farmers away from the Keelung river so it could be cleaned up?
Living in Taipei I’m sure you’ve seen the number of organic shops around. Know which ones are actually real? Two. Cottonfields and the one near Wanfang hospital. The rest are bogus. Farmers will tell you their produce is organic to fetch a higher price but it’s bullshit. Pestcide residues are found all over most of the organic produce sold in the city. So much for integrity eh?
I could go on about the buchers who sell tainted meat, the candy merchants who sell snacks loaded with cancer causing agents, but I think you get the point. I’m not making this up, and if you don’t know about this you are either new to the country or living in a bubble.
Hey, Mucha Man.
(forumosa.com keeps changing your name from M-U-C-H-A-M-A-N to Muzha Man.)
Thanks for the insightful post. I understand your position much better now.
In your opinion, what is encouraging farmers to use so many pesticides, consumers, drive for profit, or regulations?
Buyers won’t buy their produce (or will pay less for it) if doesn’t look nice (i.e. it has lots of insect bites). And also remember that this is a sub-tropical country so there are LOTS of pests. A friend down in Hualien told me it took three or four tries before he could salvage ANYTHING from his fields after he went organic. Everything he planted just gotten eaten. He has since learned new techniques for protecting his crops but he still has problems finding buyers since the market for organic produce is not that large (though growing quickly) and traditional distribution channels are not interested.
Also keep in mind that farming in Taiwan is super-regulated (basically socialist) and most people involved in it are old, so change is slow to take hold.
I could not, even if I tried very hard, agree more with Muzha Man on this one… I have less than one iota of sympathy for Taiwan’s “farmers”… dodgy chemical drenched shrub botherers that they are… :raspberry:
There is a worrying situation in England where people in their mid fifties/ early sixties are dying from the pesticide ridden food they ate at the end of the war. Is that what is going to happen here to? Surely the benefit of being such a backwards nation is that they can take advantage of hindsight.
It is sad to know that they man who will one day run over my children in a drink driving accident, is also actively killing me right now by spraying garbage on my food. CHEERS!
but i need to eat my veggies. so is just plain (like bottled) water enough to clean them up? what do you eat Mucha_Man, only organic stuff?
Organic, hydroponically grown (no soil), or imports. It’s easy to get celery, carrots, potatoes, brocolli, lettuce, etc, from overseas. I usually soak all green veggies for a few minutes and rinse. If I remember to buy it, I use veggie washes designed to help get rid of residue.
[quote=“jwar”]Hey, Muzha Man.
(forumosa.com keeps changing your name from M-U-C-H-A-M-A-N to Muzha Man.)
Thanks for the insightful post. I understand your position much better now.
In your opinion, what is encouraging farmers to use so many pesticides, consumers, drive for profit, or regulations?[/quote]
You can write Mucha_Man, or MuchaMan, or just MM like most people.
Some answers have been proposed for why so much is used which I think are likely very true. In part I also think scientific illiteracy among the farming generation is to blame. Also a lack of civic mindedness. But I think a big problem is that many farms are still family affairs and it’s harder to regulate. If you have big agriculltural companies like in the US the public could put more pressure on them to fix their act as they would have a definite body in mind to boycott. Here, you often don’t know (unless you buy from a small organic shop) just where your stuff was grown or by who. The only pressure that is exerted is by the government regulatory bodies who themselves have only started to get their act together in recent years.
Things are improving. I suspect in the next five years, organic produce from the east coast will be standard fare on our tables. Just let the west coast farms go fallow or return to forest as in the US.
moving this to TP…
Apparently, yellow sticky plates have shown promise, according to this paper on Technology For Sustainable Agriculture In Taiwan:
fftc.agnet.org/library/article/bc46003.html
Use of Yellow Sticky Plates to Control Insects
Experiments have been carried out in Taiwan (Liu et al. 1993) to explore the possibility of catching and killing insects in the field using colored sticky plates coated with insecticide (Omethoate). The results indicated that yellow plastic plates coated with insecticide gave good control of leaf miners. Since this method does not spray insecticide directly onto crops, environmental pollution can be avoided. Different species of insects may be attracted by different colors, so separate experiments should be conducted for the control of different insects.
Has anyone ever seen these?
Question: Do you think Taiwan’s entry into the WTO will help this situation or worsen it?
Personally, I believe it may only make pesticide usage worse as local farmers are forced to continue to produce food more appealing - visually - to compete with the cheap prices of imports.
Remember the rice bomber?
According to the American Chamber of Commerce in Taibei (Taipei) publication “A Survey of the Agro-Chemical Industry”, the rice bombs were labeled with “Stop Rice Imports”.
amcham.com.tw/publication_to … ics_id=496
But there’s so much I don’t know. What do those reading this think?
I don’t think Mucha Man is harsh at all. Those are things that needs to be point out. WTO is a very good thing if we want it to be. This is a matter of perspective.
Taiwan really needs to have sound and better zoning codes for both the factories and the farms. It’s stupid to have animal farms upstream to pollute our drinking water downstream. It’s even dumber to put factories upstream of farms to pollute our crops and as well as the drinking water at downstream.
Most insects DO have their natural predators or weakness. They need to study more on this if they are serious on create a local organic food market. They are a lot to learn from other countries that are doing this right as well. Taiwan needs to send people there to learn how to do this.
Taiwan is still one of those country that don’t know how to treat their water or manage their waste correctly. This is such a large contrast to its otherwise near 1st rate economic. It’s embarrassingly 3rd worldish when compared to other real modern democratic countries. 
The regulators in Taiwan should not only to penalize the violators. They needs to also educate the farmer populations as well as manufactor populations. Give them win\win solutions for both parties with the right incentive, of course! Dumping money on these problems that I’m seeing don’t really solve the root of the problems if they are just hacking away at the leaves only. :s
Agreed, the problem isn’t the WTO or other nations. Globalization is inevitable, hence we’d better prep our farmers to be more competitive.
Example: It was easy to become valectdictorian in Junior High, but in College it was hard as hell.
Muchaman,
As I’m neither newbie nor living in a bubble, I fear you may be right about the prevelance of bogus organic food. I’d like to know, however, on what you base your claim that only Cottonfields and one other shop are the only ones selling real organic food.
[quote=“bhavana”]Muchaman,
As I’m neither newbie nor living in a bubble, I fear you may be right about the prevelance of bogus organic food. I’d like to know, however, on what you base your claim that only Cottonfields and one other shop are the only ones selling real organic food.[/quote]
Consumer reports. Same as the type that told us the only safe bottled water is More or Yes. Are they accurate? I hope so. Do I know for sure? Of course not. Do I have reasonable cause to believe in them? Yes.