Come and eat Taiwan red beans! The price of red bean goes down, farmers work in vain, worry about opening up and killing weeds will make the market merchants lower the price again.

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Wen/Upstream and downstream reporters Li Huiyi, Yang Yuyun

From mid-December onwards, domestic red beans have entered the production season one after another, but the opening price is only the cost price of farmers, equal to white labor! The average purchase price in the first two years was between 38 yuan and 41 yuan per catty, but the opening prices in Gaoping, the main producing area this year, were not ideal. Kaohsiung Daliao and Pingdong Wandan were both 36 yuan/catty. According to all parties, the low price is mainly due to more inventory and less market consumption.

Low prices lead farmers to lose all their money. A small number of farmers prefer not to sell their red beans after harvest, but carry them home for storage. Farmers who have not yet harvested often gather to discuss estimates of future price changes. The harvest season for red beans this year has been extremely volatile, and farmers are not laughing. Moreover, the government has not yet decided whether to allow the herbicide "Coxapyr" to be used as red bean leaves, and there is even more concern about the origin of the crop.

At the press conference on December 14 last week, Chen Jizhong, chairman of the Committee of Agriculture, said that whether to open the herbicide "solid grass" as an ormosia defoliant will be decided in the near future, but farmers are worried that once the opening will affect the price of ormosia,"solid grass" will become the last straw to crush the price of beans.

Background knowledge: red beans are rich in protein, higher than wheat and white rice, and lower in calories. Because the whole grain is more complete in nutrition, dietary fiber and vitamins are rich in minerals, it can be used as a healthy staple food choice, and it is also a delicious dessert. Many people drink red bean water to eliminate edema. Red bean is an important winter crop in southern China and a unique agricultural landscape in Gaoping area.

Low market demand, difficulty in future price rise of red beans

The red bean industry is dominated by field transactions, and most of the vendors go to the red bean garden to purchase the red beans planted by farmers. The Agriculture and Food Administration has mentioned many times in public in the past two years that the purchase price of red beans should not be lower than 38 yuan to 40 yuan/catty at least, but the purchase prices offered by vendors in Dalian and Wandan on the 14th and 16th are 36 yuan/catty respectively.

Mr. Li (pseudonym), a Pingtung pan merchant, said that the output of the processing plants that usually cooperate with the supply is decreasing year by year, and this year it is even less than 30%. The demand is low, and the purchase price is naturally not high. He further said that in the past, green bean soup in summer and red bean soup in winter were mostly replaced by hand-cranked cup markets. He stressed,"Everyone eats more red beans, only to have an effect on prices."

Chung Ching-hui, director general of the Meinung Agricultural Association, says that Taiwan's red beans are currently in excess of demand, consumers are eating less, and the stock has not been digested for years.

The 80-year-old farmer surnamed Li hopes that the government can maintain market order and investigate and solve the phenomenon of low red bean prices. (Photography/Li Huiyi) Production costs are increasing, farmers are more and more bitter, and the price is 36 yuan, which is equivalent to losing their money.

The abnormal weather causes the cost of pest control to increase but not decrease. According to the cost analysis of red bean in the 108-year coarse grain production of Agricultural Food Administration, the current production cost includes seedling, fertilizer, pesticide and labor expenditure, with an average of 8810 yuan per minute.

However, it is hot in autumn and winter in the south this year, and the flowering pollination is not good. The average yield of red beans is only 250 jin to 300 jin. If calculated by 36 yuan/jin, farmers 'income falls between 9000 yuan and 10800 yuan. Red bean growth period of about 100 days, from this point of view, farmers busy for more than three months, can only earn between 190 yuan to 1990 yuan.

Wan Danqing Nong Chen Guohua planted 3 hectares of red beans, of which about 2 hectares were contracted with Wan Dan Farmers Association. He said that the purchase contract of the peasant association was priced at 40 yuan/catty, which was his only income this year. As for the purchase price of non-contracted red beans is only 36 yuan/catty,"this is my cost price, equal to complete white work."

Meinong farmer Xiao Chenglong has not yet harvested red beans. He estimates that this year's harvest will not be as good as in the past. In the past, an average of 400 jin can be planted on a plot of land. Now it is already a high yield of 350 jin. In the case of low harvest and low purchase price, even if Pingtung is warm and sunny at this time, red beans usher in a cold winter.

In a dry red bean field, it is easy to find mature and detached red bean pods. (Photo/Li Huiyi) Agriculture and Food Administration: Waiting for January's market price A few farmers don't want to sell Most people can't sell

head of crop production section of the food and agriculture department, ms lapis chan, said the red bean market would not open until january next year. He said that this year's red bean planting area and output are similar to the past, and the main consumption power of red beans is processed products, not general retail. As far as he understood it, the number of processed products had not decreased either. He suggested that farmers who had not yet harvested should not be anxious and wait for the market price to come out.

Mr. Li, who lives at the junction of Wantan and Xinyuan in Pingtung, is in his fifties and grows beans with an area of 5.2 minutes. On December 20, he harvested about 1000 catties of 4 points. Because the price was too low, he did not want to sell it to the dealer, so he simply carried the thousand catties of red beans back to his warehouse. "I want to wait a month and see if the price will be better. Anyway, it's already so low now!"

He heard that some farmers listened to the advice of the dealer, it didn't matter if they didn't sell for the time being, but they could store them in the dealer's warehouse first. He smiled bitterly and said: "It is said to be placed, but it is only used to appease farmers. In the end, farmers are not sold at low prices obediently."