One day after being sworn in, new Council of Agriculture Chairman Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) said that ensuring an abundant food supply would be his top priority.
Chen said in response to media inquiries yesterday that Taiwanese need not worry about possible food shortages amid increasing surges in global prices for staple crops, including wheat and soybeans, as well as feed corn.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY
As part of efforts to stabilize food and feed prices domestically, Chen said he had worked out a series of measures, including encouraging farmers to resume tilling their fallow land and to grow feed corn and other crops that Taiwan imports from other countries, to meet local demand.
Self-sufficiency is a key goal of the council, said Vice Agriculture Chairman Huang Yu-tsai (黃有才), who was director-general of the council’s Agriculture and Food Agency before being promoted to his current position.
HELP
Huang also said that the council would outline a series of measures to subsidize farmers and fishermen who are expected to be severely hurt by the new government’s planned move to raise gasoline and electricity prices.
The council would also help farmers absorb the impact of rising prices with other subsidies, Huang said.
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