In response to recent agricultural and livestock product price hikes, which have caused price fluctuations of daily commodities, the Council of Agriculture (COA) and Fair Trade Commission (FTC) are investigating whether vendors are engaged in illegal hoarding. If prices do not fall soon, the COA will also formulate preferential customs tariffs for hog imports, and Taiwan Sugar Corp. (Taisugar) will supply its own 3,000 hogs to mitigate the problem.
These strategies were discussed at the Executive Yuan price stabilization task force meeting convened today by Vice Premier Mao Chi-kuo, who remarked that currently the pork market does show an abnormal situation of supply and demand and that hoarding by vendors is suspected.
At present the COA and FTC are gathering evidence of whether concerted actions have violated Article 251 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of China or Article 14 of the Fair Trade Act. If necessary, they will work together with prosecutors to expand the investigation.
The COA stated that the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) that peaked in January and tapered off this month resulted in the deaths of about 220,000 pigs. Estimates based on the length of time necessary to raise a hog (seven months), however, indicate that this epidemic is not the cause of the present imbalance in supply and demand. For instance, the daily usual transaction volume of hogs, which was about 24,000, has recently dropped to 22,000, an obvious shortage of 2,000 heads per day. In addition, the hogs sold on markets were heavier on average, indicating hog farmers have delayed delivering them to the market, thus greatly affecting pork prices.
The COA pledged to continue to bolster its investigations and crackdowns. Yesterday, some of its officials went to Pingtung to investigate, and the agency will exhaustively tabulate the attendance and hog sales in the nation's relevant auction markets.
The COA hopes hog farmers will work with the government in these difficult times and deliver timely pork supplies, but it will not rule out emergency hog import tariff cuts (halving the rate from 12.5 percent to 6.25 percent, for instance) if the imbalance does not improve soon. Taisugar can not only supply its own 3,000 hogs to increase supply but also import about 1,500 metric tons of pork. Moreover, the COA would coordinate with Taisugar and other associations to import frozen pork meat to regulate market supply.