Food Revolution Day! Farmers' Market Introduces TUV Year-Round Inspection for the First Time to Ensure Food Safety
Water Garden Organic Farmers' Market Partners with Germany's TÜV Rheinland to Launch a Triple Safety Mechanism!
252Pesticide Residue and Heavy Metal Testing Weekly Sampling and Weekly Testing for Guaranteed Safety
(Taipei News, May 20, 2014) In response to British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's global Food Revolution Day initiative, the Greater Taipei area's landmark organic farmers' market –Water Garden Organic Farmers' Markettogether with market supporters, is building a rigorous, safe and trusted agricultural food community. In partnership with EU-system German TÜV Rheinland, it supports organic farmers year-round, providing year-round pesticide residue and heavy metal testing for the market. Combined with the existing organic certifications of each farm and the market's occasional farm visit activities as participatory inspection by the public, this forms a triple inspection protection network, creating a rigorous and safe organic farmers' market!
Guided by the Agriculture and Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, and the Taipei Water Department, and assisted by the Homemakers United Foundation, the National Teachers' Union Confederation, and the Taipei Cultural Exploration Association, the Water Garden Organic Farmers' Market requires every applying farm to be certified by an organic certification body recognized by the Agriculture and Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan. Before coming to the market, farms are also visited on-site by market committee members for exchanges of ideas, and through the assistance of German TÜV Rheinland, related products undergo irregular monthly market sampling inspections. German TÜV Rheinland and the organic farmers are willing to use these rigorous standards to build a safe and healthy market together with friends who support them out of trust!
German TÜV Rheinland General Manager Gao Yuqiang pointed out, "Food safety is a key livelihood issue in recent years. Because we identify with the philosophy of the Water Garden Organic Market, we support the development of toxin-free agriculture through action, hoping to bring a more complete and rigorous food safety experience to domestic organic enthusiasts and quality farmers' markets."
Lin Bohu, CEO of the Taipei Cultural Exploration Association, organizer of the Water Garden Organic Farmers' Market, stated, "Health, ecology, fairness, and rigor are the four major organic principles that the Water Garden Organic Farmers' Market follows. Among them, rigor is precisely the important key to the sustainability of organic agriculture and food safety. Through cooperation with the world-class professional certification body German TÜV Rheinland, we hope to serve as a demonstration that inspires others, not only establishing self-requirements for every farm in the market, but also hoping to build together with all market-supporting friends a basic understanding of food safety and organic agriculture, including what kind of farming methods are practiced, pesticide testing, soil remediation, water source protection, heavy metal background values, and more.
A series of food safety issues that occurred in 2013, including expired products sold as current products, or made with expired ingredients, illegal addition of industrial-grade preservative disodium EDTA, illegal addition of industrial-grade maleic anhydride used to modify starch, illegal addition of industrial-grade dye Sudan yellow, illegal addition of industrial-grade salt used as edible salt, edible oil adulterated with cottonseed oil and copper chlorophyll, preservative benzoic acid at excessive levels, vegetables with excessive residues of pesticides such as carbaryl, oxamyl, and profenofos, non-purely brewed soy sauce containing excessive levels of toxic substance monochloropropanediol, and eggs containing carcinogenic antibiotics sulfachloropyridazine and chloramphenicol. These foods, so closely related to people's daily lives, have become killers of health, causing people to lose trust in manufacturers and creating panic and distrust toward food.
In the future, the market and the autonomous committee will regularly invite a supporter to draw a sample, allowing the supporter to personally choose any agricultural product from any farm to send to German TÜV Rheinland for 252-item pesticide residue and statutory heavy metal testing, and the relevant test results will be made public.
German TÜV Rheinland is a professional food testing and certification laboratory belonging to the century-old European enterprise TÜV Rheinland Group of Germany. It is an independent third-party certification body. In Taiwan, it has not only passed the Taiwan Accreditation Foundation (TAF) ISO17025 certification, but also obtained dual certification from the Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) for food, drug, and cosmetics laboratories. With rigorous testing technology and management quality aligned with international standards, it safeguards food safety for the public.
About the Water Garden Organic Farmers' Market
This is a purely organic fool's endeavor – purely organic persistence, genuinely organic farmers, organically lived aesthetics. This is the story of a group of farmers who are changing Taiwan through nature-friendly natural farming. A group of organic farmers, standing up by their own strength, have rebuilt a uniquely vibrant organic cultural new market at the tap water garden in the Taipei Gongguan shopping district. It is held every Saturday from 11:00 to 17:00 at the Taipei Water Park (near MRT Gongguan Station Exit 4).
Press Contacts:
Taipei Cultural Exploration Association Lin Bohu / 0938-322-844
German TÜV Rheinland Yeh Huiyun (Claire Yeh) / 0912-400-782