Polluting Taiwanese firm offers farmers $1.1m in compensation

Taiwanese monosodium glutamate producer Vedan in southern Dong Nai Province has proposed compensating VND20 billion (US$1.1 million) to local farmers for their cultivating land damaged by its untreated waste water.

According to Vedan’s representative, lawyer Hoang Nhu Vinh, Vedan proposed the compensation in an official letter sent on Monday to the Farmers’ associations in HCM City, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces.

Farmers in HCM City and Dong Nai Province will receive VND14 billion, with VND7 billion for each locality. Farmers in Ba Ria-Vung Tau will receive VND6 billion, according to the letter.

The letter said compensation recipients must be legal owners of farmland and aquaculture farms directly affected by waste water.

Land use certificates and business licenses are among the necessary documents mentioned by Vedan.

Vedan also announced that it would set up a VND5 billion ($277,777) welfare fund to support farmers in HCM City’s Can Gio District, Dong Nai Province’s Long Thanh and Nhon Trach districts and Ba Ria-Vung Tau’s Tan Thanh District.

The fund will be used to assist farmers who want to receive vocational training or shift from agriculture to other occupations.

"Vedan will work with farmers’ associations in HCM City, Dong Nai and Ba Ria – Vung Tau to exchange opinions and reach agreements on rates," Vinh said.

The vice president of Dong Nai Province’s Farmers Association, Tran Van Quang, however, said the proposed compensation was "too low". "It is only about 10 per cent of losses caused to farmers in each region," he said.

More than 7,000 farmers along the Thi Vai River have demanded compensation of over VND200 billion ($11.1 million), claiming their farms, mostly aquaculture, have been devastated by untreated waste water Vedan had dumped into the river.

Since 1994, Vedan has been allegedly dumping more than 5,000cu.m of untreated wastewater daily through concealed underground pipes.

Vedan was caught last September dumping untreated effluents into the Thi Vai River.

The wastewater contained mostly cassava starch, molasses and other toxins detrimental to water in the Thi Vai River, which has become heavily polluted over the past decade.

(Source: VNS)