The Council of Agriculture (COA) is trying to get Taiwanese to eat more rice in unconventional ways after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) suggested that consumption needed to be increased because large plots of land around the country are being left fallow.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) said the council wants to get people back into the habit of eating rice, long Taiwan’s staple food, by marketing a wide range of rice products through diverse channels, in cooperation with the private sector.
SUCCESS STORY
One success the new approach has brought about has been the refrigerated Japanese-style rice balls and sushi currently sold at 7-Eleven convenience stores, which were produced with technology provided by the council to make them taste fresher.
Following that success, Chen said the council is experimenting with new technology in order to create new rice-based food products that appeal to local consumers.
The council has established an initial goal of lifting the annual average per-capita rice consumption in Taiwan from about 48kg to 48.5kg this year, 50kg in 2013 and 51kg in 2014.
EAT MORE RICE
If every Taiwanese were to eat an extra mouthful of rice each day, it would help lift the country’s rice consumption by 23,000 tonnes per year, the council said.
Rice consumption in Taiwan has fallen in recent years because of the increasing diversity of local diets.
Council statistics showed that the average Taiwanese ate only 48.1kg of rice in 2009, compared with an average of 58.5kg in Japan.
About 5,600 hectares of rice paddies around the country are not being cultivated at present because of the weak demand.
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