Farmers can justify the rise in prices for produce, while hog farm operators don't understand why they have to lose money to supply pork. As a matter of fact, 600 grams of pork steak fetch NT$70, lower than the cost of producing it. The same weight of tomato is sold at NT$78 at detail.

"We don't know why corn and soybean powder are getting more expensive, though the surge in prices has long ceased," one hog farmer said yesterday. A hog is auctioned at NT$6,000 per 100 kilograms. "We are losing money," the hog farmer complained.

Vegetable farmers attribute the price surge on their produce to two typhoons, the last one hitting Taiwan on September 28.

Usually, produce prices come down in late autumn. "They haven't," a Xinchu truck farm operator said. Because of the typhoons, he said, all farms have to take more time to get back to production. That is choking the channel of supply.

As less vegetables are being supplied, their prices simply have to rise. Cabbage is retailed at NT$50 per kilogram, Chinese cabbage at NT$58, convolvuli at NT$60 and green pepper at NT$100.

The mean rise in prices was about 30 percent.