1. Minister urges legislature not to raise grain prices

Cross-party negotiations on the issue took place on July 11^th. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed raising government purchase prices by NT$8 per kilogram, while the Taiwan People’s Party proposed a hike of NT$5 per kilogram. Chen urged lawmakers to block the proposal, saying it would harm farmers’ interests and could create a “butterfly effect” that could damage the nation’s food security by upsetting the general production and sales structure. The proposal to hike the base price for the government purchase of rice would increase the government’s annual budget by NT$11.3 billion (US$347.6 million), whereas the ministry’s policy is estimated at NT$2 billion, he said. While the policy would seemingly increase farmers’ income by NT$48,000 per hectare, Chen said a precedent set in 2011, when the government hiked the government buy-in price by NT$3, caused an explosion in rice planting, but also the lowest rice price in years.　

2.Legislature forms task force to investigate egg import scheme

On July 11^th, The Legislative Yuan's Economics Committee approved the establishment of a task force to investigate the government's handling of an egg import scheme from 2022-2023, which opposition lawmakers characterized as being marred by controversy. A proposal to set up the task force was passed unanimously through a vote by lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party, after ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators walked out of the committee meeting in protest.