Post-Election Look at the Issues 02"Farmers' Association Director-General: Bulk Vegetables Should Adopt Planned Production, the Council of Agriculture Should Not Make Decisions Only on Nanhai Road
(Continued from the previous article) This year vegetable prices have been sluggish, and leafy vegetable and fruit vegetable production areas in central and southern Taiwan have been filled with lament, with extreme dissatisfaction over auction prices; the DPP suffered a major defeat in agricultural counties and cities in the nine-in-one elections. Does the electoral turnaround mean a complete rejection of the Council of Agriculture's two years of new agricultural policies? "Upstream and Downstream" interviewed six directors-general of farmers' associations at important joint vegetable and fruit marketing areas in central and southern Taiwan to publish their views on vegetable prices and Council of Agriculture policies. In response to the farmers' side's opinions, Council of Agriculture Acting Minister Chen Chi-chung also responded; please click here to read.
The following content is compiled from first-person oral accounts by farmers' association directors-general and is published in two articles. This article contains the views of the directors-general of the Yunlin County Siluo Township Farmers' Association, Citong Township Farmers' Association, and Kaohsiung City Meinong District Farmers' Association. For the views of the other three farmers' association directors-general, please click here to read.
Siluo Township Farmers' Association Director-General Liao Chin-fu: Bulk vegetables should adopt planned production; the government should not suppress vegetable prices
After Tsai Ing-wen (President Tsai Ing-wen) took office in 105 ROC year, from cracking down on vegetable profiteers to the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation consecutive holiday closures, the government said it wanted to set ceiling prices, and things have dragged on until now, with vegetable prices very sluggish. At the Siluo Farmers' Association, about 80% of deposits mainly come from farmers' deposits, meaning that if farmers make money they deposit it; we are the township with the highest farmer household deposits. But after 105 ROC year, farmers' association deposits have not increased at all, remaining at 16.8 billion, whereas in the past they should have increased by an average of 1 billion each year, meaning farmers have not made money in these two years, and the money they earn from selling is only enough for their own expenses.
Also, in the past farmers could rely solely on income from selling vegetables and it was enough; the old farmer pension was rarely withdrawn to spend, and every year 30 million in old farmer pension deposits would come in. Now even the old farmer pension is being taken out to spend, which shows how poor vegetable prices are and has caused a major backlash.
Han Kuo-yu (former former general manager of the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation) paid more attention to the voices of farmers in production areas and often sent business specialists down to look at production conditions, but Wu Yin-ning (who had just left the general manager post at the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation) never came, making decisions while sitting in the office, and seemed not very approachable. In fact, she was also unlucky; with favorable weather, production increases, but the market closure turmoil plus the impression of a 2.5 million annual salary intern caused resentment among young farmers, who thought, how could vegetable prices differ so much from the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation general manager's salary, creating a backlash among farmers.
Although 70% of Siluo farmers trade at the Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market, Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation prices affect Siluo market prices; if Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation auction prices collapse, prices here will collapse too.
What farmers dislike most is that the Council of Agriculture should stand on the farmers' side, but instead it stands on the consumers' side. As soon as prices are good, it says it wants to stabilize commodity prices; at that time you suppress vegetable prices, and when prices are low you do not care. Farmers feel that if you do not care when prices are low, then let everyone play freely, and do not say that when the weather is bad you will release cold storage to stabilize commodity prices.
The Council of Agriculture's policy direction is very good, but implementation needs adjustment
The Council of Agriculture has many policy directions that are very good, but implementation needs adjustment. For example, in the Council of Agriculture's promoted Great Granary Plan, the contract production target for red beans was initially 1,200 hectares, but in fact the farmers' associations willing to cooperate with contract production (currently known to be Meinong, Wandan, and Daliao) reached only 570 hectares, of which the Meinong Farmers' Association alone accounted for 170 hectares. In fact, our farmers' association has received a lot of messages, and many farmers still want to join this contract production plan, but our farmers' association does not dare take on more, because we fear insufficient sales capacity, and if we cannot sell it by then, it will also be hard for us to answer to farmers.
We all know that some companies say they will help farmers with contract production, but in fact they do not buy much while the unit price is high. This practice instead harms our farmers' association, because farmers will use a few cases to question us: why is the farmers' association's contract production unit price lower than theirs?
In addition, the green environment subsidy policy is very good, but farmers may not necessarily feel it. First, it must be clarified whether the rice policy subsidy is to be subsidized to the landowner or to the agricultural producer. Can our farmers' association first advance the money and pay the seedling subsidy, transportation subsidy, and land subsidy all together to the actual cultivator? Otherwise, in the end the land subsidy money may very likely be subsidized to the landlord rather than the real farmer.
What farmers' associations should do is help farmers open up new territory and find channels
I think that in terms of production technology and willingness, Meinong farmers are highly competitive. Farmers who have joined the farmers' association production-marketing groups operate very smoothly overall, and farmers exchange all kinds of production-marketing information and professional techniques through the production-marketing groups. But there are also weaknesses that must be overcome, namely sales, so what farmers' associations should do and must do is help farmers open up new territory and find channels.
Take orange honey-scented cherry tomatoes as an example. This crop industry has now entered its 14th year of development, the cultivated area has risen to more than 200 hectares, and annual output value is looking toward 600 million, of which the ratio of farmers who have joined production-marketing groups to those who have not is about 6 to 4. We are not worried about the 60% of farmers who have joined production-marketing groups, because most of these farmers are young, willing to learn, strong at absorbing knowledge, and know how to fight as a team. But the other 40% of farmers, whom we call marginal farmers, fight alone, have unstable production quality, and are not strong in home delivery capability, so once production exceeds the amount sold, they are bought at low prices by brokers.
It looks like these farmers are merely having their personal rights damaged, but in reality it seriously damages the industry. First, it damages the industry's baseline price, and second, the road home for young farmers returning to their hometowns suffers setbacks. Therefore, in order to bring marginal farmers back onto the right track of production and marketing, we actively cooperate with the Postal Mall and Fuhe Fresh Agricultural Products Company, hoping first to settle the amount of orange honey-scented cherry tomatoes the other party needs, then turn back to carry out contract production with these marginal farmers, so that farmers, without worries, can quickly raise cultivation techniques and the quality of grading and packaging. Only this will help the entire industry improve.