The Kaohsiung City Government has addressed a plunge in locally grown banana prices by offering cash incentives to growers who send fruit to offshore markets
Tsai fu-Chin, the director of the city’s agricultural bureau, told Focus Taiwan the ‘cash prizes’ would be based on how many containers a grower exported.
He added that the government would also aid growers in planting varieties that ripened at different times of the year to help prevent gluts during the summer months.
Currently bananas grown in Kaohsiung were fetching around NT$8 (US$0.28) to NT$10 per kg in wholesale markets, barely covering the cost of production, the news source reported.
On average 32,900 tonnes of bananas are grown on 1,717 hectares in the region each year, of which only around 10 per cent is exported.
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