As concerned residents in northern Taiwan flocked to hypermarkets and emptied their shelves of vegetables yesterday, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that veggie supplies were stable, and urged the public not to fret about a potential hike in prices for the healthy treats.
"Typhoon Matsa did not devastate southern Taiwan, which also means that produce farms there were not damaged at all. In addition, we have enough frozen vegetables for emergency distribution. As a result, vegetable prices shall not rise in the near future," COA Chairman Lee Ching-lung (李金龍) said.
Lee made his remarks while visiting the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co to discover whether vegetable prices would rise because of the typhoon. He said that there was no need to worry, because vegetable supplies remained stable.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
According to the company, the average price across all vegetables yesterday was NT$36.8 per kilogram, which was NT$0.95 cheaper than the same figure on Thursday. However, the price is still regarded as relatively expensive.
In the meantime, the total amount of produce that was distributed from the company yesterday was 1,005 tonnes -- 30 tonnes more than the same figure on Thursday.
"It is my understanding that vegetable prices did not go wild," Lee said.
According to Lee, the COA yesterday distributed 300 tonnes of the strategic frozen vegetable reserve -- designed to prevent emergency vegetable shortages -- to help neutralize and stabilize prices.
"Another 300 tonnes to 500 tonnes will be released on Saturday. There is nothing to worry about," he said.
Officials at the COA were unable to confirm how many tonnes of frozen vegetables remained in the strategic vegetable reserve, saying only that they "did not have that information."
However, the COA chairman remained confident that Taiwan could avoid a vegetable apocalypse.
"Typhoon Matsa only swiped through northern part of the country. Since the major vegetable farms are located in the south, these farms remain in good shape, so Matsa's hitting Taiwan will not impact vegetable prices at all," Lee said.
Although vegetables prices were still regarded as relatively expensive, consumers in the northern part of the country took advantage of the typhoon day yesterday, and jammed into hypermarkets such as RT-Mart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco to stock up on groceries. However, vegetables at the hypermarkets were more expensive than they were at local markets, as is usually the case.
For instance, when Lee visited Taipei City's Nanmen Market (
However, at RT-Mart, they were a hefty NT$300 per kilogram.
The price of green onions, which easily suffer from adverse weather conditions, is often used as a barometer to measure the overall health of the produce industry.
Meanwhile, Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) was to visit Taichung yesterday, but he canceled the trip and went to an RT-Mart in Taipei's Neihu District to determine if there was enough produce for consumers.
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