Tainan County has made progress selling mangoes to Japan in export volume after years of effort in seeking better fruit quality and effective promotional measures, Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) said yesterday.
The agricultural county is known for many types of agricultural produce, with the Irwin mango being one of its specialty strains. The county is also Taiwan’s largest producer of mangoes.
Su said the county’s export of mangoes to Japan had increased from 100 tonnes in 2001 to 1,000 tonnes last year and that the volume this year had already surpassed 1,200 tonnes by the end of last month.
The improvement was the result of great efforts by local mango growers and the county government.
Su said the county practices a strict traceability system that requires that each exported mango carry a bar code representing its origin, which serves as a warranty from the farmers to win consumer confidence.
Moreover, to meet the requirements of countries like Japan that expect strict inspections on agricultural products, the county established vapor heat treatment facilities three years ago for insect sterilization of mangoes and tighter controls of pesticides used in contract orchards.
Only mangoes that pass strict inspections are competitive in the Japanese market. Quality rather than quantity is the key and Taiwan has no problem meeting the challenge, Su said.
The county has 540 hectares of contract orchards producing 6,000 tonnes for export annually, of which 30 percent can be shipped to Japan this year, Su said.
He said that each mango grower has to be careful about quality control because a single bad sample would affect the whole image the county has carefully built.
The county government established the Tainan Agriculture Trading Co four years ago to promote its farm produce domestically and globally.
Better quality control helps increase selling prices in Japan and the traceability system is expected to allow a mango to be sold at double its previous price, Su said.
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