Summer bananas return to cultivation amid a warm winter, with large volumes and falling prices; the Council of Agriculture integrates information and promotes natural disaster insurance
Last year, typhoons struck one after another and dealt a heavy blow to banana-growing areas in central and southern Taiwan, China. Because replanting took place at the same time, the Council of Agriculture predicted that bananas would come onto the market in large volumes starting in June, causing banana prices to fall, and launched a promotional mechanism ahead of time. However, banana farmers complained bitterly, saying their profits had been affected. Faced with this cycle, the Council of Agriculture once again took to the front line to explain that important information such as banana production and sales, production areas, wholesale volume and prices, and climate would all be integrated into the "Fruit and Vegetable Production and Sales Information Integration Platform", first to help farmers adjust production and sales, and second to let consumers refer to the information on it when making choices. In addition, the Council of Agriculture also stressed that the agricultural insurance currently being piloted will include a newly planned banana item to help stabilize farmers' income.
Banana information goes onto the "Fruit and Vegetable Production and Sales Information Platform," allowing estimates a year in advance
In order to ensure that farmers do not only recover their costs after a year of hard work and can obtain reasonable profits, Chen Jizhong also pointed out that the Council of Agriculture is now also integrating wholesale market trading prices, production areas, wholesale and retail prices, meteorological information, and more entirely into the "Fruit and Vegetable Production and Sales Information Integration Query Platform", so that in the future farmers can use it as a basis for adjusting production policies.
Regarding this information platform, Su Maoxiang said that one very important item of information in it is the actual planted area. In addition to estimating the planted area by counting the existing number of banana seedlings, every township office also has agricultural situation investigators who count the actual planting area of each township. Therefore, in the future, information for each township on the platform can all be queried, and the actual planting area can also be estimated as early as "one year" in advance.
In addition to the information integration platform, Chen Jizhong also pointed out that bananas are, after rice, the crop second most severely affected by natural disasters, with agricultural losses last year reaching as high as 1.3 billion yuan. In order to prevent farmers' incomes from plummeting due to wind disasters, the Council of Agriculture is now also studying income insurance for bananas, hoping to complete the planning as soon as possible and make it one of the pilot items so that more farmers can participate.