Garlic price war kicks off early: how can farmers break through under the monopoly of imported garlic and local dealers?

Text / Upstream and Downstream reporters Lai Yu-wei, Kong De-lian

Local garlic is about to officially enter its production season next week, yet the garlic price war has already kicked off early. First, legislators came out to blast the large volume of imported garlic for causing garlic prices to crash, and the Council of Agriculture immediately held a press conference to rebut that the impact was "negligible"; just as the two sides were locked in debate, the continuously sliding farmgate purchase price had already left farmers deeply anxious.

Garlic prices keep being talked down: can auction trading blaze a new path for Yunlin garlic?

Agricultural authorities have repeatedly suggested that garlic farmers adopt drying measures and wait for the right moment to sell, but unfortunately this is not the best option in the minds of garlic farmers; bulk garlic is about to begin harvesting next week, and without drying the garlic, how can wet garlic, under the pressure of racing against time to sell, break through the price-calling limits of local dealers? Checking the agricultural products wholesale market price site, on March 27 the dry garlic auction price at the First Market and Second Market still held at 44.09 yuan per kilogram. Do garlic farmers intend to deliver garlic to the auction market for trading?

Zhang Yu-xuan, director-general of the Citong Township Farmers' Association, believes that although auction is one approach, it also has its difficulties. First, even if the current auction price is decent, once garlic floods the market in May, if all of it is sent to auction, the subsequent price may not necessarily stay high, and the transaction price could even fall below the cost price; second, garlic is a fairly closed-type crop, and garlic farmers' delivery habits and dealers' purchasing models are mostly fixed, and they rely on local dealers to call prices, so if garlic dealers do not enter the auction market to trade, there is nothing garlic farmers can do. Can auction trading blaze a new path for Yunlin garlic? Local farmers' associations are still watching.