Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) yesterday urged the Legislative Yuan not to approve a hike in government purchase prices for grains, saying that past experiences show it drives down market rates, ultimately harming farmers.
Cross-party negotiations on the issue took place yesterday.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed raising government purchase prices by NT$8 per kilogram, while the Taiwan People’s Party proposed a hike of NT$5 per kilogram.
Photo: Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
Chen urged lawmakers to block the proposal, saying it would harm farmers’ interests and could create a “butterfly effect” that could damage the nation’s food security by upsetting the general production and sales structure.
The proposal to hike the base price for the government purchase of rice would increase the government’s annual budget by NT$11.3 billion (US$347.6 million), whereas the ministry’s policy is estimated at NT$2 billion, he said.
While the policy would seemingly increase farmers’ income by NT$48,000 per hectare, Chen said a precedent set in 2011, when the government hiked the government buy-in price by NT$3, caused an explosion in rice planting, but also the lowest rice price in years.
If the Legislative Yuan approves the proposal, it could give foreign rice products the opening they need to establish a foothold in the Taiwanese market, Chen added.
As of last year, agriculture communities were selling rice at NT$26 to NT$29 per kilo, which has already exceeded the base government buy-in price of NT$26, he said.
The Ministry of Agriculture’s policy promoting farming cooperatives to increase farmers’ income has received support from more than 80 percent of farmers’ associations in regions where the policy was implemented, Chen said.
The policy encourages farmers who had to turn in grains to the government to join agricultural cooperatives and provide better grains, with the ministry offering NT$10,000 per extra hectare grown, he said.
The ministry expects that fields under agriculture cooperatives would reach about 10,000 hectares within three years, and the number of excellent-grade crops grown would increase to 60 percent within that time, he said.
The second part of the policy encourages farmers in certain areas to switch to planting grains, which would reduce the overproduction of rice and increase Taiwan’s self-reliance on grain production.
The ministry is offering NT$20,000 in subsidies per hectare if farmers whose fields border the high-speed railway are willing to plant grains in the first planting, while cooperatives are willing to provide an additional NT$5,000 on top of the government’s subsidies.
Chen said that the policy hopes to increase the price of dry grains by NT$3 per kilogram within three years.
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