Taiwan Today

The government will actively promote the use of domestically sourced organic food in school lunches around the nation beginning Sept. 1, and will continue to update and enlarge the cloud-based food registry system so that parents of students will be able to monitor what is being served in the nation’s schools, Premier Lin Chuan announced Aug. 11. The initiative, proposed by the Council of Agriculture, was prioritized by the premier, who said the matter concerns the health and well-being of Taiwan’s children during the Cabinet’s weekly meeting. The COA and Ministry of Education will work together to give the nation’s schools access to a wide variety of nutritious locally produced food, seeking to ensure that schools provide organic lunches at least once or twice a week. Tsao Chi-hung, minister of the COA, said his agency will take samples and conduct tests to ensure quality and verify the origin of ingredients in school meals. These measures are in line with President Tsai Ing-wen’s strategy to boost citizens’ trust in the nation’s food safety measures. To make it easier for officials to verify the origins of ingredients in children’s meals, the MOE has requested that all food products purchased by local schools be labeled with QR codes. In addition, the country’s cloud-based food registry system will retain the complete history of schools’ food purchases beginning next semester. The Executive Yuan said in a statement that the MOE has asked all city and county governments to utilize top-quality agricultural products that are organic and conform to Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) standards. Currently among Taiwan’s six special municipalities, New Taipei City and Taoyuan City already offer organic school lunches on a regular basis. The COA has recommended that Taichung City begin offering such meals within the year and that Tainan City and Kaohsiung City do so before the end of 2017. Domestically produced organic meals will be more expensive than regular lunches, according to the COA. For the 220,000 students in Taichung City, for example, it is estimated that the difference will amount to roughly NT$26.4 million (US$812,000) per year, with the cost set to be shared by the city government and the COA. (WF-E) Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mofa.gov.tw