In a bid to cut the supply 10 percent, the Council of Agriculture (COA) will offer a NT$150,000 subsidy per hectare to tangerine farmers who scrap tangerine growing space next year, up from the existing NT$120,000, a top COA official said yesterday.

Chen Wu-hsiung, COA minister, made the remarks while joining a campaign held jointly in Taipei yesterday morning by the Department of Health and the Yunlin County Government to promote tangerine sales in Taipei.

Chen said tangerine production in Taiwan hit a high of 200,000 metric tons this year, with total growing space amounting to 9,500 hectares. Although the COA has implemented a series of programs to manage tangerine oversupply, the effects are not so encouraging, with average wholesale prices plunging to a low of NT$5-6 per kilogram.

Over the past month, local enterprises have "adopted" only 10.7 hectares of tangerine production; government units, schools and business associations have purchased only 190 metric tons; and sales to food makers and the military sector amounted to 4,652 metric tons.

At yesterday's sales campaign, Yeh Chin-chuan, minister of the Department of Health, urged the public to drink more tangerine juice or eat more tangerines, as such a fruit contains ample vitamins conducive to good health.

Yunlin County Magistrate Su Chi-fen also boasted the "golden tangerine" grown in her county as "top quality and quite juicy," and very suitable for fruit gifts before and during the Chinese New Year festival. She called for everyone to patronize her county's tangerine supply, the biggest producer of tangerines in Taiwan.

In Yunlin County alone, annual production volume of tangerine is 72,773 metric tons, accounting for some 40 percent of the island's total production. Total growing space in the county comes to 3,355 hectares.

Besides the concerted efforts of central and local governments to promote domestic tangerine sales, Yunlin County is also moving to ship tangerine products to mainland China, so far delivering 1,200 metric tons to the other side of the Taiwan Strait.

In order to reduce the excessive supply, the Yunlin County government has urged farmers to scrap tangerine production and switch to other agricultural products.