May 26, 2008

Taiwan offers incentives to boost feed corn

Taiwan's government has come up with an incentive to encourage farmers to grow feed corn on fallow farmland to meet the strong local demand, the Council of Agriculture (COA) deputy minister Huang Yu-tsai said Friday.

Huang said the country will offer a subsidy of TWD45,000 per hectare to farmers who grow feed corn on their fallow farmland.

Taiwanese farmers can earn as much as TWD95,000 per hectare for the crop if their anticipated revenue of TWD50,000 per hectare is added to the subsidy, Huang explained.

The combined revenue of some TWD95,000 per hectare is much higher than the TWD45,000 per hectare in subsidies which the government has been paying farmers to suspend cultivation of their farmland, the ministry noted.

Around 220,000 hectares of farmland across Taiwan is currently lying fallow.

According to Huang, the council expects to push farmers to cultivate feed corn on around 12,000 hectares of farmland this year and on a total of 30,000 hectares next year.

At yields of 5 tonnes of corn per hectare, the production will still fall short of the 6 million tonnes required annually by local poultry farmers and other feed users.

Huang pointed out that the robust demand means that there will always be a market for the crops.