With the oversupply of garlic this time around, the Council of Agriculture is planning to assist the farmers by exporting garlic out to China and southeast Asian countries, where the price is comparatively higher in those regions.

The cold weather this year prompts a better harvest of garlic, but it is not a pleasant news for farmers since the prices at origin drop sharply from 70 NTD per catty last year to less than 20 NTD.

Strangely, the production volume is only up by 10 percent, not a huge difference that would cause the price to drop this much.

It turns out that five major middlemen refuse to honor the contracts with farmers and not buy any garlic.

To address the problem, the Council for Agriculture is to step in.

But unlike the previous practice where the Council of Agriculture would initiate the mechanism to purchase garlic with taxpayers' money,

the agency says that from now on to July is the period where China is not producing garlic and it is to cash in on the opportunity by promoting export sales.

Local farmers wonder the refusal of buying garlic is a tactic of the middlemen, who are forcing the government to purchase garlic to lower the market prices.

But the local farmers' association and the Council of Agriculture refuse to comment on the rumor.

Meanwhile, farmer's associations in Yunlin urge the public to order garlic directly from farmer's association to help farmers.

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