Reacting to the global food crisis, the government has started a campaign to encourage increased consumption of local rice, hoping to promote domestic rice production and lessen Taiwan's dependence on imported food. But some experts criticize that the authorities should focus on a reassessment of the overall agricultural policy, instead of addressing the problem merely on a trivial level.

Wheat is in short supply, and prices are soaring. Taiwan relies heavily on imports, and has a food self-sufficiency rate of just 31%.

The government is promoting a "local consumption" policy, and the Council of Agriculture is calling on the public to eat more domestically-grown foods.

According to the COA, Taiwan's food self-sufficiency rate will rise if every person eats one more mouthful of rice per day.

In response, Taiwan's farmers say that the government's lowering of raw material customs taxes supports large food import companies rather than encouraging local consumption. Agro-economic experts say that the government has the right idea, but that depending solely on measures to raise Taiwan's food self-sufficiency rate is an impossible battle.

Instead, the government should be approaching the problem from a structural standpoint and encouraging farmers to plant crops rather than letting fields lie fallow.

The COA says that the problem is the result of the westernization of the Taiwanese palate, and that the annual rice consumption of the average person has plummeted from 98 kilograms to 48 kilograms in just three decades.

In response, both farmers and scholars say that Taiwan's low food self-sufficiency rate is the result of the overall planning and direction of the government's agricultural policies, and that the problem won't be resolved simply by encouraging people to eat more rice.

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