Boosting Pear Industry Competitiveness: Taichung City Agriculture Bureau Holds Domestic Pear Scion Achievement Event

Top-grafted pears are an important economic fruit tree in Taichung City. To promote exchanges among farmers and improve the quality of top-grafted pears, the Taichung City Agriculture Bureau recently held a domestic pear scion exchange and observation event at the pear orchard of farmer Ke Xunyue in Houli District, where farmers shared tips with one another on cultivating domestic pear scions, hoping that through exchange and learning the competitiveness of the pear industry as a whole can be enhanced.

Wang Junxiong, Director-General of the Taichung City Agriculture Bureau, said that the pear scions currently used by farmers are mainly imported from Japan. However, due to factors such as abnormal climate in recent years and the replacement of Japanese pear varieties, Japan's pear scion exports have declined. In addition, in years 104 and 105 of the Republic of China calendar, Japanese pear scions were successively found to be suspected of contamination by bacterial diseases, resulting in a reduction in the quantity of imported pear scions and soaring prices.

Director-General Wang Junxiong said that in order to avoid excessive reliance on imported pear scions, the Agriculture Bureau has, since year 105 of the Republic of China calendar, encouraged farmers for 2 consecutive years through subsidies and incentives to choose domestic pear scions, and has also held domestic pear scion achievement observation events so that farmers can see the excellent quality of domestic pear scions, calling on top-grafted pear farmers to use more domestic pear scions.