After Typhoon Megi hit Taiwan in September last year, the price of a head of cabbage surged by NT$200 to NT$300. Less than three months later, the price had plunged to NT$20 per head and NT$50 for three at the retail market. A farmer in Chiayi County even invited people to pick cabbages themselves, charging a mere NT$10 per head. Some even gave up harvesting altogether and used cabbage as fertilizer.
What the Council of Agriculture could do to remedy the situation was very limited: Apart from helping ship two containers, or 30 tonnes, of cabbages to South Korea it also shipped six containers to Malaysia.
This is a familiar scene for Taiwanese. When the Central Weather Bureau reports that a typhoon is forming over the waters off the Philippines, it has an immediate effect on Taiwan, although it is still hundreds of kilometers away and its course keeps changing. During a typhoon, fruit and vegetable prices spin out of control as people rush to stock up on agricultural products.
If a typhoon changes direction, fruit and vegetable prices return to their original levels after a typhoon warning is canceled.
However, if it hits Taiwan, problems arise. When farmers deliver the first batch of water-damaged fruit and vegetables to agricultural distribution centers, wholesale prices usually fall because the produce does not look good, but retail prices usually rise. Can the council explain this pricing mystery?
As normal output of fruit and vegetables cannot be promptly resumed, the prices of produce, such as cabbages and bananas, rise due to scarce supply. Eagerly anticipating a high profit, farmers ignore the council’s warnings and grow excessive amounts of expensive items. History then repeats itself as the prices of these items collapse a few months later.
At first blush, no one is at fault: Farmers hope to increase their profits and the council has dutifully issued its warning.
However, both are wrong. Farmers need to stop blindly growing expensive produce and authorities need to improve their overall planning. A few typhoons hit Taiwan every year, but every year, agricultural authorities sit back and watch history repeat itself as the prices of produce go up and down like a roller coaster.
Take bananas for example. Per capita income in the US is 2.5 times higher than in Taiwan, but US banana prices are a little more than NT$10 per jin (600g) at the 99 Ranch Market chain.
If faced with a price war, what should Taiwan, the “banana kingdom,” do? What went wrong with its banana exports, which are barely competitive, and how can it solve the problem? Agricultural authorities should give banana farmers a clear answer.
Government officials, lawmakers and elected local representatives frequently travel overseas on study tours. Apart from studying casinos, red light districts, drugstores and outlet malls, have they ever reviewed other nations’ fruit and vegetable policies? Do they know how other nation are able to maintain long-term stability in fruit and vegetable prices and avoid sharp short-term price fluctuations by as much as 10 times? Do they know how to prevent intermediaries from exploiting producers and how to prevent consumers from paying excessively high prices?
And a final question: Are prices really doomed to swing back and forth between prices that are so high that they hurt consumers and prices that are so low that they hurt farmers? Is it really impossible to find a solution to this quandary?
Chang Kuo-tsai was an associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education before retiring and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Eddy Chang
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) made a statement that provoked unprecedented repudiations among the European diplomats in Taipei. Chu said during a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting that what President William Lai (賴清德) has been doing to the opposition is equivalent to what Adolf Hitler did in Nazi Germany, referencing ongoing investigations into the KMT’s alleged forgery of signatures used in recall petitions against Democratic Progressive Party legislators. In response, the German Institute Taipei posted a statement to express its “deep disappointment and concern”
RSS