The Council of Agriculture on Feb 2 held a presentation for the “Taiwan’s Delicate Fruit” program and to announce 2007 as the marketing year for Taiwan fruit. The COA will hold a vote on Taiwan’s top ten domestic produced fine fruits, aiming to replace 20% of imported fruits with domestic ones in three years. Taiwan needs to win this competition between domestic and imported fruit to strengthen the domestic fruit industry development strengthen.

According to the COA, since Taiwan has joined the WTO, it should comply with the WTO rules which request some sensitive farm products import based on the Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) systems. Faced with competition from imported fruits, Taiwan needs to boost the competitiveness of domestic fruits. The COA plans to boost high-quality, fresh and safe homebred fruits and educate the domestic consumers of the advantages of homebred fruits, especially their freshness and safety.

The COA’s “Taiwan’s Delicate Fruit” program includes facilitating the setup of Taiwan fruit selling platforms to provide group purchase services; contacting with international class hotels to provide foreign visitors with Taiwan fine fruits; negotiating retailers to establish a Taiwan fruit section for selling as well as holding a vote on Taiwan’s top ten homebred fine fruits, in order to raising consumer’s recognition and preference for homebred fruits. The theme song for Taiwan’s Delicate Fruit program, written by the I-Shou International School principal Hong Wan-Long, was performed by Taiwan’s famous baritone Zhang Bao-Lang at the presentation of the program

To market the commodities at their original production sites, the COA explained that 15 city and county governments of the main fruit production sites have set up selling platforms to introduce the features of their local commodities and provide group purchase services. The representatives of each governmental agency showed up at the presentation to recommend their local fruits. The Agriculture and Food Agency under the COA, in accord with the marketing scheme, has set up a “Taiwan’s Delicate Fruit” section on its website linked to each selling platform, to facilitate consumer search for product information and purchasing.

To market the products at high-consumption areas, the COA has requested the Ambassador Hotel and the Howard Hotel to serve international visitors delicious and high-quality Taiwan fruit at buffets. Retailers like RT-Mart, Carrefour, Geant, Wellcome and the nationwide Farmer’s Association Market, will set up sections of Taiwan fruit at their outlets to separate homebred fruits from imported ones. In an earlier phase, 40 markets in Taipei City and Taipei County have set specific sections for Taiwan fruit. During the harvest season of homebred fruit, farmer’s groups will cooperated with retailers to hold fruit tasting events. The first events were held on Feb 2, 3, 10 and 11 when 40,000 catties were offered as incentives. Consumers would get 1 catty of free oranges with the purchase of 5 orange catties, 3 Chinese dates catties or 3 banana catties during the event.

The COA plans a nationwide vote on Taiwan’s top ten homebred fine fruits between July and August. Five hundred voters will make their choices known by computer. The COA hopes people purchase more Taiwan fruit and help Taiwan’s agriculture, show concern for Taiwan’s farmers and create new opportunities for farmers, retailers and consumers.