The Council of Agriculture (COA) launched a pork promotion campaign on Tuesday, with discounts of 20 percent being offered on frozen products to help drive down the retail price of pork.
A total of 50 supermarkets run by agriculture associations in New Taipei City (新北市), Greater Kao-hsiung and Pingtung, Penghu and Kinmen counties are participating in the sale of frozen pork products, Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) said.
Wholesale hog prices have dropped significantly — to less than NT$50 per kilogram — because of a supply glut, but retail prices have not reflected the -decline and hovered around NT$200 per kg, Chen said.
The council plans to review the campaign every two weeks and see whether the sales need to be expanded, he added. More stores, including supermarket chains and warehouse retailers, will participate in the second wave of sales tomorrow, which will bring the total number of stores participating to more than 800, Chen said.
The campaign will allow consumers to buy pork at discounted prices, while helping swine farmers resolve a supply glut, said Hsu Kuei-sen (許桂森), head of the council’s Department of Animal Husbandry.
Meanwhile, the council is carefully assessing the oversupply problem, as well as discussing with farmers the number of hogs that need to be slaughtered, Hsu said.
Before a consensus on the number can be reached, the ministry needs to calculate the number of swine exceeding limits set for each city and county, Hsu said, a task he said would be finished tomorrow.
In order to stabilize pork prices, the department has proposed that 60,000 pigs be slaughtered between May and July, but farmers want that number boosted to 100,000, Hsu said.
A final decision will be made at a meeting on Monday between the department and a major swine breeding association.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS