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Farmers bear brunt of
an inept government
By Steve Wang ¤ý«ä¬°
Speaking at the Chinese Nationalist Party¡¦s (KMT) Central Standing Committee
meeting last week, President Ma Ying-jeou (°¨^¤E) warned politicians against using
the issue of an oversupply of agricultural produce to feed the media with false
information that could trigger price fluctuations, which would be
disadvantageous to exports and harm local farmers.
This cheap shot at the opposition, designed to clear the Ma administration of
responsibility for the plummeting prices, demonstrates just how inactive and
thick-headed his government is.
If pan-green politicians could actually drive down the price of produce just by
opening their mouths, they would indeed be mightier than the ¡§invisible hand¡¨
economists like to talk about. If such a feat were truly possible, it would then
also logically follow that Ma should be able to reverse the downward spiral. He
would just have to open his golden presidential mouth and the pro-government
media would certainly cooperate and spread his word around the clock.
Surely this would immediately cause the prices of agricultural goods to shoot up
and allow farmers to laugh all the way to the bank.
However, if Ma were not able to drive prices up, then there could only be two
explanations. One is that Ma is so incompetent that no one believes anything
that he says and his only chance to get any attention is when the opposition
criticizes him. The other is that he is so incompetent that he cannot even
follow his own logic and realize that if the opposition can drive down prices
with their words, then he should be able to likewise push them up.
In dealing with the recent fruit surplus, Ma¡¦s solution was very passive.
Instead of actively helping farmers market and sell the surplus internationally
and offering them immediate economic relief, he simply asked farmers to let
their land lie fallow.
Ma¡¦s incompetent solution is in stark contrast to that of French President
Nicolas Sarkozy, who proposed 1.65 billion euros (US$2.37 billion) in assistance
for the troubled French agricultural sector in October 2009. Sarkozy¡¦s aid
package included 1 billion euros in low-interest bank loans and 650 million
euros in state spending on oil subsidies, tax relief and agricultural insurance.
Sarkozy also emphasized that farming was part of the French national identity,
which is based on the special relationship between the land and the people
living on it. He said agriculture was part of the French soul and that the two
were inseparable.
In this instance, Sarkozy illustrates a president who actually identifies with
the soil beneath his feet, one who naturally expresses an irreplaceable, strong
sentiment for his country¡¦s agricultural traditions and one who actively defends
those traditions, instead of treating farming as some sort of lost industry,
isolating farmers and leaving them to work themselves to death.
It would, of course, be completely preposterous for the nation to put such hopes
in a person who won¡¦t even admit he is Taiwanese.
Steve Wang is an advisory committee member of Taiwan Thinktank.
TRANSLATED BY KYLE JEFFCOAT
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