Typhoon Champi hits Taiwan farms, lawmakers urge assessment to protect incomes

Typhoon Champi approached Taiwan’s western coast this weekend, bringing strong winds and torrential rain. Although it had noticeably veered away from the main island's center by the early hours of the 24th, its path has already caused damage to numerous agricultural irrigation systems and resulted in downed crops, particularly affecting rice paddies in the south and vegetable farming areas in the north. Farmers have expressed concern that months of cultivation efforts could be wiped out. Fu Kun-chi, caucus whip of the Kuomintang (KMT) legislative caucus, immediately called on the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Agriculture to instantly initiate an agricultural disaster assessment mechanism to rapidly tally the affected areas and extent of losses, so as to avoid delaying subsequent subsidy procedures.

Taiwan faces typhoon strikes every summer. According to Central Weather Administration statistics, an average of three to four typhoons made landfall or passed close to the coast annually over the past decade. The agricultural sector deploys pre-typhoon measures ahead of every disaster season, including reinforcing windbreak forests, distributing disaster prevention materials, and providing irrigation and drainage guidance. However, climate change has increased typhoon intensity and rainfall concentration, further highlighting issues such as aging agricultural drainage systems and damaged irrigation networks, making it difficult for farmers to recover on their own in a short period and creating an urgent need for government technical and financial support.

Under the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act and the Agricultural Disaster Relief Act, central competent authorities are required to complete a preliminary loss assessment within seven days after a disaster occurs, and complete approval and disbursement within thirty days. In the past, such as during Typhoon Morakot in 2016 and Typhoon Haishen in 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture established dedicated task forces to swiftly dispatch local farmers' associations and technicians to sites for measurement, and distributed disaster compensation based on the proportion of losses to alleviate the burden on farming households. Although the impact range of Champi is relatively limited this time, farming groups have stated that if the assessment procedures are delayed, it will directly affect post-harvest sales and storage costs.

Within the Legislative Yuan, the pan-Blue and pan-Green parties hold differing views regarding the timeliness and transparency of post-disaster relief. The Kuomintang advocates that the government should take immediate action to prevent farmers from losing their entire investments, emphasizing administrative efficiency and local coordination, while the Democratic Progressive Party