Dozens of farmers yesterday urged the government to immediately increase the price of rice to help farmers stay afloat financially amid dropping prices, and agriculture officials responded by proposing temporary relief measures.
Led by Huang Kun-pin (黃崑濱) — better known as “Uncle Kun-pin” (崑濱伯) — farmers from Houbi Township (後壁), Tainan County, complained at a press conference at the legislature that the Council of Agriculture hadn’t increased subsidies for farmers, yet it offered NT$3.5 billion (US$116.4 million) to the Taipei City Government for the Taipei International Flora Exposition.
Laying out stalks of ice on the table, the farmers said the council’s purchasing price for rice had fallen to NT$820 per 60kg, a 20 percent drop, at a time when the price of bulk commodities on the global market has exploded.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The farmers urged the council to launch an investigation into whether rice businesses were monopolizing the market.
Huang and the farmers then headed to a meeting of the legislature’s Economic Committee, where Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) was answering questions from legislators.
Huang, who appeared in a documentary on farmers in 2005, urged the council to reevaluate the damage done to Houbi’s agricultural sector by Typhoon Fanapi in September.
“The severity of the damage was unclear when the government made its initial assessment of the losses. Hollow rice crops grew -afterwards,” Huang said, -adding that his losses had reached NT$40,000.
Chen said he would ask the Houbi Township Office to take a second look at the damage and would respect the results.
As a temporary measure, Deputy Council of Agriculture Minister Huang Yu-tsai (黃有才) said the government would urge farmers’ associations and rice warehouse owners who purchase crops on behalf of the government to increase their procurement prices.
The deputy minister said farmers who considered the price set by private dealers too low could sell their rice to farmers’ associations or government-listed warehouses.
“The government has sufficient funds and capacity to buy rice from farmers,” he told a press conference following a Cabinet meeting.
He said the government has bought 2.4 times more rice this year than it did for all of last year.
“There has been a slight increase recently in the procurement price set by private dealers, from about NT$810 to NT$820 per -kilogram late last month to NT$860 to NT$880. We expect the price to eventually reach NT$900 per kilogram,” he said.
According to a press release, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) told the council during the Cabinet meeting to increase government procurement of rice to reduce supplies to the market and thereby increase paddy rice prices.
In related news, Council for Economic Planning and Development Vice Chairman Hu Chung-ying (胡仲英), who was also present at the press conference, said the government had adopted measures to keep commodity prices stable.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs will continue to closely monitor the import of wheat and soy beans and make the necessary adjustments, Hu said, adding it had also ordered state-owned Taiwan Sugar Corp to limit price hikes.
The Ministry of Finance has proposed cutting tariffs on butter, raw sugar, refined sugar, soy beans and corn flour, contingent on Cabinet approval.
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