Taiwan mulls intellectual property protection for crops as Beijing seeks to lure farmers
Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture said on Thursday that it would draft and put forward a new ordinance to prevent agricultural technology, branded fruits and other newly developed plant varieties from being taken abroad.
The plan to protect the self-ruled island’s economically important agricultural sector comes after Beijing on Wednesday announced 22 incentives for Taiwan farmers to develop businesses in mainland China. The draft will be completed before the end of June, said deputy agriculture minister Chen Junne-jih on Thursday.
The council took inspiration from Japan’s introduction of a plant-variety protection and seedling law last December, Chen said.
To take effect on April 1, the Japanese legislation prohibits individuals from taking seeds and saplings abroad. Offenders will be subject to sentences of up to 10 years in jail or a fine of up to 10 million yen (US$91,700). For corporations, the fine can be up to 300 million yen. Japanese authorities are also given the right to ban certain transactions and request compensation.
Once passed, there was an urgent need to immediately ban the export of new fruit varieties to mainland China, where intellectual property infringement was rife, Chen said.
Meanwhile, western Yunlin county on Thursday shipped the first batch of 1,680 cartons of “Taiwan Golden Diamond” pineapples — weighing 16,800 kilograms (37,038 pounds) — to Hong Kong since mainland Chinese authorities in late February slapped a ban on Taiwan pineapple imports, citing contamination by pests.
Apart from Hong Kong, Taiwan will continue to develop its fruit trade with Japan and Singapore in order to make up for the loss of orders from mainland China, a chairperson of an agricultural cooperative told a press briefing on Thursday. Although Taiwan exports only 10% of the tropical fruit it produces each year, mainland China is its largest market, accounting for almost 90% of the orders.
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