Analysis Outline

      The goal of agricultural production is to maintain balance between production and sales, ensure food supplies, upgrade production quality and seek equilibrium between human activities and ecology. Compared with year 2005, the weather was rather suitable for agricultural production in year 2006, there was growth in crops, livestock and poultry. There was a decline in forestry production due to the decrease of side products. The production in fishery also went down because of the rise of oil price, the reduction of fishing boats and scarce fishery resource. The general prices of agricultural products went down due to natural disaster and harvest. Following are the details.

I. Agricultural Production Index

      The Agricultural Production Index of 2006 was recorded as 94.91 (setting year 2005 as 100), which shows 0.81% of growth compared to the index of last year (2005). Breaking down the index by industrial category: the index of the agricultural product category had a growth by 9.62%; the forestry product category had a growth of 11.37%; the index of animal product grew by 2.42%; while production in fishery decreased by 14.00%.

II. Structure of Agricultural Production

      The overall production value of agricultural products in 2006 dropped by 1.50% with a total value of NT$ 377 billion, compared to last year’s NT$ 382.7 billion. The production value of Agricultural Products out of the total value was the highest with a value of NT$ 172.7 billion, taking up 45.81%, growing by 6.19% compared to last year. In the structure of production value of agricultural products, fruits sharing the largest portion yielding 39.18% and followed by vegetables taking up to 25.50%. The rest include rice, sharing 17.01%, flowery at 7.25%, miscellaneous stable foods 4.63%, crops for specific uses taking up 4.70%, and mushrooms sharing 1.73%. Compared to the structure of last year, rice and vegetables went down by 0.29 and 0.71 percentage points respectively and fruits went up by 0.87 percentage points. The animal production value of this year dropped by 6.75% compared to the value of last year, yielding a total value of NT$ 118.1 billion or 31.33%. In the breakdown of animal production value, hogs took the lead with 46.96% and poultry with 31.65%. Eggs shared 11.32% and other animal products took up 10.07%. Compared to last year, this year had a growth in hog production by 0.54 percentage points. Poultry decreased by 1.11 percentage points. The Fishery Production Value of this year decreased by 7.71% as compared to the value of last year, registering a total value of NT$ 85.7 billion or 22.72% of the total agricultural production value. The breakdown of fishery production value: offshore fishery took the lead with 48.35% and inland aquaculture second with 28.67%, inshore fishery sharing 11.30%, costal fishery taking up 6.92%, seawater aquaculture sharing 4.74% and a minor share of inland fishery. Compared to last year, there was a larger drop in inshore fishery by 2.31 percentage points and growth in offshore fishery and costal fishery by 1.37 and 1.22 percentage points respectively.

III. Overview of Agricultural Production

      The weather condition in year 2006 was better than year 2005; thus production of most agricultural products grew this year. Production of rice grains grew to 1.56 million tons, registering a growth of 6.20% compared to last year. In the category of miscellaneous stable foods, production of peanut grew by 9% to 130% of the volume of last year due to increasing plantation. Production volume of sweet potato and azuki grew by 10% and 30% respectively. Production of feed corn and Ko Leung shrank by 10% and 40%. Production of sugarcane and tobacco fell by 20% to 30%. Production of fruits in 2006 has had more growth than decline. Production of banana, Ponkan mandarin orange , Tankans Orange Citrus, mango, guava, papaya, grape, loquat and lychee grew 20% to 50%. Production of most vegetables grew in 2006. Production of potato, tuber onion, bamboo shoot, Chinese cabbage, oriental pickling melon, winter melon, bitter gourd, eggplant, kidney bean, cantaloupe and melon grew by 20% to 50% compared to that of last year. However, production of ginger and garlic declined by approximately 20%. Production of forest woods was 27 thousand cubic meters, which fell by 14.05% compared to the one of last year. Production of side products such as bamboo shoots and tree fruits fell by 2.64% at a volume of 31 thousand tons. The total volume of fishery production this year was recorded at 1.28 million tons with a reduction of 2.33% compared to last year. Inland aquaculture grew by 3.42%. Inshore fishery withdrew by 23.27%. Production of various animal products showed positive and negative growth both. Production of hog grew by 2.1%. Production of goat grew by 20.47%. Production of milk grew by 6.48%. Production of chicken grew by 1.88%. Production of egg grew by 2.6%. Production of bull fell by 6.97%. Production of goat milk fell by 12.5%.

IV. Prices of Agricultural Products

      The weather was quite pleasant for agricultural growing in 2006. Prices of agricultural products in 2006 went down mostly. With no serious natural disasters or monsoon, even though there has been a decrease in the total size of paddy fields, the production per unit turned out to be higher. There has been a stable supply of japonica rice, so the price went down by 2.87%. Production of peanuts went up by 18% due to the reduction of production during the second quarter in 2005. All prices of vegetables went down except for garlic’s 57% growth. Prices of Chinese cabbage, bitter gourd, cabbage, Taiwanese cabbage, vegetable sponge, cucumber, winter melon, eggplant, tomato and tuber onion all went down by 20% to 40%. Prices of carrot, broccoli and potato also went down by around 10%. Owing to the weather factor and more supply this year, prices of fruits went down mostly. Prices of guava, banana, Hsin-Hsing pear and pineapple went down by 20%. Prices of date, grape and Ponkan orange went up by 10%.

      Prices of flowers went down overall. Prices of Chrysanthemum went down by 10%. Prices of Tuberose, rose, Gladiolus hybridus, Carnation and fragrant lily slipped around 10%.

      Due to an increase in production of hogs and imported meat trading, the price of hogs was lowered by 7.62%. Due to the low price of chicken wings in the U.S. , which caused a foray of imported chicken into Taiwan , the price of meat chickens slipped 10%. The price of eggs also slipped 10%, readjusted to the normal price compared to last year’s peak. Among fishery products, prices of Mackerel, oyster, Tilapia, white pomfret, yellow sea bream and clam went up by 10% to 30% while prices of milkfish and Pagrus major went down by 10% to 30%.

V. Farming Households and Farming Population

      There were a total of 767,350 farming households in year 2005 in the Taiwan Area, which shared 10.56% of the total households in the Taiwan . There was approximately 3.4 million of population in the farming households, which took up 14.99% of the total population. In year 2006, an average of 555 thousand of farming population was registered, which indicated a reduction by 36 thousand or 6.09%, compared to the figure of 2005.

VI. Income of Farming Households

      Income of farming households in year 2005 fell by 2.29% as compared to year 2004. Each farming household earned an average income of NT$ 873 thousand, which was 75.43% of non-farming households. Income from farming dropped by NT$ 15,000 or 7.87% compared to 2004, which averaged at NT$ 181 thousand sharing 20.74%, and income from sources other than farming was averaged at NT$ 692 thousand, taking up 79.26%. For income per person, each person in farming household earned an average of NT$ 232 thousand, which denoted an increase of 1.09% as compared to the figure of year 2004.