Lin Yicheng / when the price of garlic falls, the government can do more than subsidize the traders.

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Every year when the news of the collapse of garlic prices comes out, you see that local officials in Yunlin County begin to pick up garlic as a platform for farmers. the central government says that it will activate the subsidy mechanism, and consumers begin to wonder why prices collapse and market prices remain high. Start calling to curse garlic suppliers, garlic farmers, and even question whether farmers are driving up prices?

When this happens every year, the thought in my mind is, that's enough. Why does this phenomenon have to be repeated every year?

Garlic is harvested once a year, and the harvest is complicated to dry, which determines the market price at once.

Garlic in April belongs to wet garlic, which was planted in August last year. Garlic, which is native to the mountains of Asia, can only grow in winter in subtropical Taiwan and sprout only when the weather is cold enough. Farmers grow garlic not only in response to the risk of typhoon flooding in July and August, but also in response to the annual harvest, so the market price is determined once, and the annual harvest has to supply Taiwan's use for the whole year.

Consumers do not know that if you want to buy wet garlic with a price of less than 20 yuan, of course you can buy it, but no one is willing to sell you 10 jin or 20 jin at a time, and when you buy wet garlic with soil and moisture at home, it will take 20 days to use the dryer. artificial sun will be exposed to the Beginning of Summer, about a month, the average small family is difficult to cope with this complicated sun work, it has to be repeated frequently every day. Not to mention the need for a broad sunscreen.

And a large amount of garlic is not all right after being exposed to the Beginning of Summer, the usual temperature and humidity control is not good, they are also easy to mildew and break.

Why not get high subsidies to guide farmers to set up their own brands?

There should be a different idea about subsidies. The old drama of price collapse has been performed for several years. Why not use this high subsidy to guide farmers to set up their own small brands, a cooperative with the most concept of social enterprises? so that farmers can produce and sell on their own, so that they can change from layers of hurdles to fewer? Isn't it time to let the farmers make their own decisions?

Subsidies do not solve the problem, and subsidies are not the only way to solve the problem, but only create more problems, but also an ostrich mentality of burying your head in the sand and pretending that the problem does not exist. However, I would also like to stress that although disk traders disappoint many farmers, there are also many good middlemen in the world who stand between consumers and farmers at the same time, becoming a bridge between supply stability and price stability. It is not a moral mistake to become a disk trader, but there can be a better way.

If we have more ideas about subsidies, we even design that this public social enterprise co-operative can only be operated by the children and descendants of farmers, and there is a tenure system to enable young people on the ground to increase their success rate of returning home to start their businesses. isn't this the best of both worlds?

Ask consumers to support local garlic in a good way.

In addition, I think there is something wrong with the mentality of some consumers. After the Council of Agriculture held a press conference to "keep the price of wet garlic 15 yuan per jin", as far as I know, many consumers called the agricultural side and asked to buy "15 yuan garlic per jin". Consumers do not know that wet garlic is only 0.6 of the original weight (1000 grams of wet garlic = 600g garlic), plus wear and tear. The price of 15 yuan per jin of wet garlic can only be regarded as the planting cost at best, and it should not be used as a benchmark.

Consumers do not understand, as soon as they see the news that the price of wet garlic is only more than 10 yuan, but the final price has not changed, they think that it is expensive to buy. Consumers do not know that the prices of agricultural products from origin to end, because all kinds of service costs are stacked upon layer upon layer, but directly blame the negative feelings to the first-line production farmers, if you want to support Taiwan garlic because of moral kidnapping in the media, and then to the front line to buy with farmers, using the lowest price that does not match the cost to crack down on farmers' labor over the past eight months, then I think this is the consumer. You might as well generously support cheap imported garlic, or you can try renting a third of the land and growing garlic for eight months.

There are no people who will be bad at the beginning, only the bad and bad quality of the environment will create the producers' last resort. If consumers in Taipei are really lucky enough to grow a piece of fertile soil and make great efforts for their crops, you will not treat every farmer in this land in that tone.

I hope that those of you who read this article will no longer just be abusive in the style of Wen Qing, go to the fields to take photos with the farmers, and then, like every politician in Yunlin, go to Zhuanjiao's house to make tea. Of course, there are also very good consumers who go directly to the producing area to support local garlic at a price that is in line with the agricultural cost. Please support local garlic in a good way. It is still happy to buy Taiwan garlic!

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