80% of villages and towns in Ping County have completed the payment of agricultural damage relief funds due to heavy rains in late August.

The Agriculture Department of Ping County Government, together with the Pingtung Office of the Agricultural and Food Administration, and experts from the high-tech reform field conducted spot checks on the current situation.

Heavy rains in late August caused serious damage to crops in Pingtung County. The county government said today (12th) that agricultural natural disaster cash relief funds have been directly allocated by the Ministry of Agriculture to various public offices. The amount allocated has reached 289,928,475 yuan, and 80% of the towns and villages in the county have completed the distribution. It calls on the townships, towns, and city offices that have received the funds to transfer the funds to farmers as soon as possible to assist farmers in re-cultivation and reconstruction.

The Agricultural Department of Pingtung County Government stated that some towns and villages were slow to distribute this disaster relief. In addition to the slow investigation speed due to the large number of cases, the "Agricultural Industry Natural Disasters On-Site Photography APP" was not used to record the current disaster damage, which hindered the random inspection operations according to regulations, and the "Agricultural Industry Natural Disaster Relief Operation Key Points" were not used to deduct time and mix planting. The conditions of other crops and the area of unplanted crops are all detectable errors in the current survey of the public office, resulting in a few public offices failing the first spot inspection. In addition to ensuring that farmers apply for cash assistance on the premise of being lenient, expeditious, and simple, the county government also strengthens supervision of the public offices to verify the payment in accordance with regulations, reducing and avoiding the situation where farmers are inspected in the future and still have to recover the assistance funds from the public office.

Li Yongwen, director of the Department of Agriculture, pointed out that he has repeatedly called on townships, towns, and mayors to pay attention to the rights and interests of farmers under their jurisdiction and pay attention to the handling capacity of the office. If necessary, they should send more manpower and strengthen education and training to assist in handling the number of cases accepted. So far, spot checks have been completed in 28 towns such as Gaoshu Township, Pingtung City, Nanzhou Township, Wantan Township, and Yanpu Township. In some towns, only the second and third batches have not completed the spot inspections. It is expected that all spot checks will be completed on November 17.