Council of Agriculture says paddy field irrigation suspension can reduce losses from public grain: Chiayi County Government says, how can farmers bear this?
As rainfall showed no sign of improving, after irrigation was suspended on 41,000 hectares of farmland in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung, Chiayi and Tainan, the Zhonggang River area in Miaoli was also added to the latest suspension zone yesterday. However, after the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced the suspension zones one after another last year, questions repeatedly arose about favoring industry over agriculture. Chiayi County relies mainly on rice for income, and County Magistrate Zhang Huaguan sharply criticized the decision, saying that 57% of Chiayi is agricultural land, yet the central government chose to cut Chiayi's water but not Tainan's, showing no "water supply justice." Some scholars also pointed out that the Council of Agriculture deliberately suppresses rice cultivation to slow the losses from the public grain system of buying high and selling low, which exceed NT$6 billion each year, but the Council of Agriculture has always denied this.
However, the Council of Agriculture's internal talking points on the irrigation suspension policy show that, regarding why Chiayi's rice-growing area was suspended, the Council claimed that rice farming in Chiayi earns less than miscellaneous crops, and also underlined in bold, "Suspending irrigation for the first rice crop in the Chiayi area can save at least NT$560 million in public funds (reducing losses from the public grain price gap), and has multiple benefits including reducing storage and pressure from falling rice market prices."
The above statement was sharply criticized by Lin Liangmao, director of the Chiayi County Agriculture Department, who said irrigation suspension and public grain purchases should not be conflated. "This is not something an agricultural agency should say. How are Chiayi farmers supposed to take this?"
The guaranteed-price rice purchase system has room for improvement, but many experts believe that what the Council of Agriculture should review is why so much rice is grown, and that conflating irrigation suspension with the problems caused by public grain is not a fundamental solution.
Lin Liangmao, director of the Chiayi County Agriculture Department, criticized that the central government should not view irrigation suspension in terms of how much money is saved. "This is not something an agricultural agency should say. How are Chiayi farmers supposed to take this?" 57% of Chiayi is agricultural land, and the irrigation suspension area this time reaches as much as 43%, and the central government should make prudent assessments from a broader perspective. Current policy ignores development differences among counties and cities.
Lin Liangmao also questioned that the central government's assessment of miscellaneous crop returns is wrong. If miscellaneous crop profits were really so good, rice farmers would have switched long ago. The government used wrong data to make wrong decisions. In fact, Tainan was not subject to irrigation suspension fundamentally to protect water use for the Southern Taiwan Science Park, while Chiayi, located at the tail end of the water system, was sacrificed.
Council of Agriculture Policy Is Self-Contradictory; It Should Review Guaranteed-Price Rice Purchases Rather Than Suspend Irrigation
It is worth noting that even if miscellaneous crops really are more profitable, as the Council of Agriculture says, their costs and mechanical thresholds are also relatively higher. At present, to promote the return of wheat, soybean and sesame cultivation, the Council of Agriculture subsidizes NT$45,000 per hectare just to attract farmers to plant them.
A grain merchant also said bluntly that the Council of Agriculture's policy is self-contradictory: on one hand it wants farmers to grow less rice, while on the other it raises rice purchase prices for elections. No long-term policy planning can be seen at all, and it always treats the symptoms rather than the root cause. It is also unclear in which year the dry-crop subsidy will be canceled. Although suspending irrigation for rice this time may make rice prices better and benefit most farmers, "but is that fair to the farmers whose fields are left fallow?"
Liu Zhiwei, chief executive of the Taipei Grain Association, believes that to get Taiwanese farmers to grow less rice, the fundamental solution is to gradually abolish guaranteed-price rice purchases. The existing purchase system ties agricultural productivity together with social welfare for elderly farmers. Its starting point is to ensure stable income for elderly farmers, but it also makes farmers unwilling to switch to other crops. Every year taxpayers' money is spent subsidizing public grain losses. If guaranteed-price rice purchases are not abolished and the system does not return to normal market mechanisms, the same cycle will only repeat.