Cabbage prices crash, the Council of Agriculture pushes registration and controls, farmers hope the government will hold firm
By Liu Yixin and Lin Peijun, reporters for Upstream and Downstream
The cabbage price fluctuations that play out almost every year have struck again this year with mass production and falling prices. According to wholesale prices at the Taipei Fruit and Vegetable Market, cabbage went from an average of 28 yuan per kilogram in September this year, sliding all the way down to 8 yuan per kilogram in November, and this week it has fallen to just 5 to 7 yuan. To deal with the cabbage collapse, the Council of Agriculture today (the 7th) held a "Cabbage Production and Marketing Symposium" at the Xiluo Township Farmers' Association, inviting representatives of farmers' associations from Yunlin, Changhua and Chiayi, the main leafy vegetable production areas, as well as farmers from various production cooperatives and cooperative farms, to come and talk.
Acting Chairman of the Council of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung said at the start of the meeting that the purpose of holding the symposium was to have everyone discuss face to face the problems related to production and marketing imbalance and jointly work out solutions. The first round would focus on farmers' groups, and the second round would target specific producing farmers for dialogue. He stressed that the opinions raised by farmers would be widely taken in.
At the meeting he also repeatedly stressed that future planting should adopt a registration system. For farmers who have registered their production, once a problem of mass production and falling prices occurs, the government will guarantee that farmers' income is higher than production costs; as for farmers who have not registered, they must bear their own production profits and losses.
The farmers' groups present mostly expressed support for registration and controls, and stressed that the government must stick to the system. "Only with registration can we help; those who don't register, just ignore them." Once this is carried out, farmers who have not registered will quickly go and register, and cabbage will not keep suffering from production and marketing imbalance.
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In addition, Huang Jianzhi, chairman of the board of the Nanlun Fruit and Vegetable Production Cooperative, pointed out that the Nanlun Fruit and Vegetable Production Cooperative covers a total area of 300 hectares, spanning Chiayi and Changhua. He worried that cross-district farmland would increase practical difficulties in registration, and he also questioned that farmland would have identification problems. Some farmers also worried that farmers growing cabbage on large areas, with one person managing four or fifty jia, could easily saturate the planted area and instead leave small farmers unable to register.
In response to the many questions on site, Chen Chi-chung explained that farmland under different management methods would not receive the same subsidies after registration. For example, farmland under the registration system with production and sales traceability would receive a higher subsidy amount when prices fall. As for the issue of identifying farmland areas, he also explained that last year the Council of Agriculture had already surveyed domestic farmland area and information and released the "Agricultural and Farmland Resource Survey Results Inquiry Map Platform." The data for every piece of farmland had been fully established. At the same time, he promised that when drafting the registration system, the operating system would be updated at the same time and the application process simplified as much as possible.
Chen Chi-chung stressed, "The production registration system must be done. Only then can we reduce the imbalance between agricultural production and marketing. Not just cabbage, all agricultural products should do this." He said the cabbage production registration system was already under discussion, and the implementation rules and related supporting measures would be fully planned before the end of December.