Taiwan Seafood Price Crash! 'Prices Plummet 55%, Farmers Can't Afford to Raise Fish': Farming Volume Halved, Now Extremely Cheap

Prior to the U.S. implementation of reciprocal tariffs, the Taiwan tilapia market experienced a shortage of fish, causing pondside prices to rise and boosting farmers' willingness to stock ponds. However, immediately after farming volumes peaked, tariff impacts hit, disrupting exports and causing pondside prices to plummet. According to Agri-media, Kuo Chien-hsien,理事长 of the Taiwan Tilapia Association, pointed out that the pondside price for Taiwan tilapia weighing 1 to 1.2 kg, which normally ranges between NT$36 to NT$40 per catty, has now dropped to NT$25 to NT$29. Fish that cannot be sold are being processed into frozen fillets, with prices slashed to as low as NT$18 per catty—representing a price decline of approximately 55%. Meanwhile, the farming cost to raise Taiwan tilapia to 1.2 kg reaches NT$25 to NT$30 per catty, placing farmers under severe pressure, nearly selling at a loss.

Why has farming volume halved? Will there really be a shortage and price surge in the future?

The sharp price drop has severely shaken farmers' confidence. According to statistics from the Taiwan Tilapia Association, due to drought in 2023, the stocking volume was low at 114.6 million fingerlings. In 2024, it rebounded to 142.51 million. However, in 2025, affected by tariffs, it dropped to over 130 million. Notably, from January to June 2025, stocking volume was 113.84 million, but this year’s same period plummeted to 51.32 million—a year-on-year decrease of 54.9%, marking a rare decline in recent years.

According to Liberty Times, Chen Hung-shuo, Executive Director of the Chiayi County Aquaculture Fisheries Production Zone Development Association, stated that farmers are facing a situation where 'selling one catty means losing money on one catty.' Many farmers have chosen to halve their stocking volume to reduce risk, hoping to benefit if prices rebound. Meanwhile, many farmers still have large quantities of unsold mature fish in their ponds, leaving no space for new stocking—even if they anticipate a market recovery.

How to break the vicious cycle in production and sales? Experts recommend establishing an early-warning system

As reported by Liberty Times, it takes several months to a year to raise Taiwan tilapia from fingerlings to market size. The current snowballing decline in total stocking volume signals that, in several months to a year, the domestic market may face a severe supply shortage, potentially triggering the industry's recurring 'oversupply-price crash, undersupply-price surge' pendulum effect.

The report quotes Kuo Chien-hsien as emphasizing that the industry must avoid repeating the fate of rushing to farm when prices are high and abandoning farming when prices fall. The government's push for mandatory stocking volume registration is the right direction, and farmers must cultivate the mindset of honestly reporting production data. At the same time, the government should proactively collaborate with the supply chain to establish a precise big data-based farming early-warning system, comprehensively tracking domestic and international order information, to truly protect the rights of both farmers and consumers and resolve the long-standing issue of supply-demand imbalance.