To promote for the implementation of the Statute for Regeneration of Rural Villages and demonstrate the government’s determination to take care of 4,000 rural villages and farmers and fishermen throughout the country, the Council of Agriculture (COA) has started to gradually activate and realize regeneration of rural villages in 2011 under complete related legal system and invited rural communities on January 17 to build rural villages with well-being and hopes starting from the most basic activity of cleaning community environment.

Taiwan ’s First Program of Rural Village Regeneration launches at Nanpu Community in Hsinchu County

According to the Statute for Regeneration of Rural Villages, promoting rural village regeneration must be conducted in accordance with plans and communities have to formulate their rural village regeneration programs first, said the COA. The government promulgated on December 31, 2010 Review and Enforcement Rules for Rural Village Regeneration Programs for implementation. After fierce competition among many communities, Hsinchu County Government has actively assisted Nanpu Community in Beipu Township in getting its rural village regeneration program approved first, symbolizing the official launch of rural village regeneration. Various county and city governments are reviewing rural village regeneration programs submitted by 32 other communities. Regeneration of rural villages will begin in full swing when the 32 programs are put into practice after getting approval and the government expects Taiwan’s rural villages will then present a new look.

1,000 Rural Villages Celebrate Lunar New Year after Cleaning Environment

To give rural village regeneration a brand-new start, the Council stressed that in the initial stage the work will begin in the 1,000 communities which had received rural village regeneration trainings. To act in concert with farmers’ usual practice, the activity will be carried out in the two weeks before the 2011 Lunar New Year with the theme of “cleaning rural villages to celebrate Lunar New Year.” County and city governments will guide rural communities to simultaneously clean community environment and inventory community resources. As of January 17, a total of 1,008 communities had registered to take part in the activity, which reached its climax on January 22 when the communities jointly announced the beginning of the activity.

The communities were also asked to integrate the cleaning activity with such works as the Environmental Protection Administration’s recycled furniture and Tsu Chi’s resource recycling to let the rural communities present a clean and bright new look. Cleaning environment seems to be an ordinary work, but community members’ joint participation has promoted community cohesion and the participation of students on winter vacation has gradually injected new blood into communities. Thus we began the rural village regeneration in Taiwan .

The COA announced the launch of rural village regeneration programs at a January 17 press conference during which a heartwarming film on rural village regeneration in Nanpu Community was shown. The attendants were deeply touched when they watched all Nanpu residents left their farmland fallow for one year and, led by four village elders, cleaned silt from drainage ditches. Representatives of other communities brought their community regeneration programs to the press conference and spoke of visions for their own communities. Led by COA Minister Wu-hsiung Chen, community representatives shouted “rural village regeneration has spring every year” at the end of the press conference, hoping to bring rural villages into a different new era through the declaration. ( 2011-01-17)