Planting blame
In the Nov. 24 elections, many cities and counties in agricultural areas formerly controlled by the Democratic Progressive Party, with the exception of Pingtung County, were lost to the party, and some say this was due in no small part to the difficulties of farmers to shift their produce.
That said, irrespective of which political party is at the helm, the problem of sales of agricultural goods is a longstanding one, and one crucial reason behind it is demand and supply imbalance.
It is a characteristic of Taiwanese that when something is popular, people will rush to buy it, a phenomenon we have seen with cabbages, bananas, pineapples and guava.
Come harvest time, farmers have swamped the market with these goods and find it difficult to earn adequate prices. This is exacerbated by the fact that the majority of produce will spoil quickly and, even if it can be kept for a longer period of time, every step in that process — from employing fruit pickers to packaging and transportation, from warehousing and freezing or renting frozen storage facilities to subsequent distribution and marketing, including the cost of the packaging and human resources — all cost money, and few people will be willing to take on the risks involved unless they were sure that they could recoup the outlay.
However, if farmers can learn how to regulate production periods and work together with local farmers associations and government agencies, they might be able to evade these risks.
When guava farmers, for example, notice that guava is selling well at a good price and did well the previous year, they rush to cultivate more of the fruit and flood the market with it come harvest time. This means that there is a surplus on the market and the prices slump.
Then, following the harvest, they can only sit by and watch as prices shoot up again, and grit their teeth as they have nothing left to sell. At this point the central government, or at least the agencies responsible for agricultural policy, become the target for criticism.
If farmers do not make adequate preparation in the months leading up to the harvest and neglect to thin the crop and prune the branches properly, the resultant fruit will be of poor quality and will be unable to command decent prices.
Then, when the season ends, there is no longer any fruit to be harvested and prices again rise, leading to large price fluctuations.
Tsai Kuo-hsien
Taipei
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