Cabbage is not yet one of Taiwan’s major agricultural export products, due to a lack of integrated marketing systems. The Council of Agriculture showed that Taiwan dedicates 9,000 hectares of farmland to cabbages, with annual production estimated at over 360,000 tons.
Over the past five years, cabbage exports were only a tiny portion of production, and declined from 2,500 tons in 2011 to only 200 tons in 2016, statistics showed.
Council members said that up to 80 percent of Taiwan’s cabbage exports were destined for the Japanese market. A senior technical specialist at the Council of Agriculture’s Department of International Affairs, said that the decline in cabbage exports, and failure to increase export prices were mainly caused because the industry was unable to produce a stable supply of cabbage with consistent quality.
She said cabbage farmers may follow the practice of banana farmer who usually rely on trading companies to get export orders from abroad, and then arrange their production schedule to ensure a steady export of quality bananas at stable prices.
