In an attempt to highlight how President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policies have failed farmers, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) recently published an election campaign flyer showing fruits that have seen a glut in recent months. The flyer, designed in a “calendar” format, implied that Ma’s policies had resulted in farmers not even being able to cover their production costs.
The DPP was taken by surprise when their fruity flyer sparked the “war of the persimmons.” The war was over a picture that showed persimmons priced at NT$2 per jin (600g), but the persimmons in the picture were of a different — and higher- priced — variety than the DPP had intended.
With national and local elections less than a month away, it is only natural that the rival pan-blue and pan-green political camps will engage in mutual attack and defense tactics. What the public would like to know, however, is whether, after politicians and the media have devoted so many words and so much energy to the issue, anything will be done to resolve the demand and supply imbalance of farm produce or to save farmers from being exploited by middlemen.
A lack of balance between supply and demand is by no means exclusive to persimmons. Memories of recent gluts of bananas, papayas, pomelos, various vegetables and other produce are still fresh in people’s minds. Whenever elections draw close, candidates are always vying to say how much they care about the supply-and-demand issue, but once they are over, agricultural issues simply fade out of sight.
This was what happened during the eight years the DPP was in power and during the many years in which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been in office. Elected politicians never persist in trying to solve the problem. As a result, the mismatch of supply and demand is a nightmare that never stops haunting farmers.
There are many reasons for the consistent supply and demand imbalance in Taiwan, but the crux of the matter is that information about the production and sales of farm produce is not equally available to all who may need it. Farmers are generally poorly informed compared to wholesalers, who have ready access to information about market supply, demand and prices. This puts farmers at a distinct disadvantage in price bargaining. They often get ripped off, but they just have to put up with it.
Take the issue of milkfish farming, which is currently a focus of attention in Taiwan. Milkfish producers have long faced the problem of a poor distribution system. Wholesalers and transporters are able to adjust supply and demand for milkfish, so they decide the price. Most milkfish producers are families who operate on a small scale. They can hardly stand their ground against big wholesalers, so it is difficult for them to make a reasonable profit. This is the main reason why milkfish producers in Greater Tainan’s Syuejia District (學甲) have welcomed the politically motivated agreement signed by China to buy Taiwanese milkfish.
Unfortunately, the media have focused on China’s motives for signing the agreement — even though its conditions are very favorable to Taiwanese producers — and nobody seems to care very much about the difficulties that milkfish farmers have faced for so long.
Worse still, every time there has been a surplus of a product in recent years and it becomes hard to sell, the first thing the government does is turn to China’s huge consumer market. The government relies on China to fix the problem by buying up the product in question, thus providing relief for Taiwanese farmers and fishermen, but what the government has failed to do is confront the root of the problem and take advantage of opportunities to adjust the structure of Taiwanese agriculture.
We need to upgrade our agricultural sector — to keep what works well and discard what doesn’t — and attract younger people into the industry. If a patient suffers from a poor constitution, it will take more than repeated shots in the arm to keep him alive: The same logic applies to farming.
The problem of imbalance between production and sales in Taiwan has not appeared overnight, so it is not something that can be solved through stopgap measures. While government subsidies provide direct relief for farmers and make them feel that the authorities care about them, they are still no more than an emergency response and are of little help to farmers in the long run.
If we are to find an effective solution for the long-standing imbalance, we must first turn to modern technology. By establishing channels for providing comprehensive information about the market for agricultural products, farmers would be able to make timely market forecasts and decisions according to demand. This would help avoid the kind of situation where everyone rushes to grow a particular product, only to find that supply exceeds demand.
Furthermore, as extreme weather events become increasingly frequent, it is also necessary to improve weather forecasting in relation to agriculture and to strengthen farmers’ ability to cope with natural disasters.
The next step is to set up diverse channels for distributing agricultural produce so that goods can be moved more quickly. It may even be possible to facilitate direct supply lines from farmers to supermarkets. This would reduce the expense involved in intermediary trading and decrease the difference in the prices paid to producers and the prices paid by consumers.
Finally, considering the domestic market’s limited appetite, it is necessary to use exports to adjust the production chain and stabilize prices. It is important, therefore, to open up to overseas markets.
In recent years, the government has concentrated its export efforts on the Chinese market, and indeed there has been some growth in the amount of farm produce shipped to China — the total value of agricultural goods exported there last year reached US$521 million. However, Taiwan still has a deficit in cross-strait agricultural trade, since its imports of farm produce from China totaled US$662 million last year.
Meanwhile, the government has neglected to develop trade with other countries. Last year, Taiwan’s global trade deficit in agricultural products increased from US$7.03 billion to US$8.78 billion. In future, we should adjust our marketing policy so as to spread the risk more widely.
As the “war of the persimmons” subsides, let us hope that those involved get back to the real issue. All the presidential candidates should propose practical agricultural policies for the public to consider.
Lee Wu-chung is a professor of agricultural economics.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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