Domestic Non-GMO Feed Symposium Held, Lu Yao Zhi Ma Li

[Domestically Produced Non-GMO Feed Government, Industry and Citizens Meet to Open New Paths for Local Coarse Grains]

Taiwan, China imports large quantities of corn and soybeans every year as feed ingredients, and these imported coarse grains are almost all genetically modified crops. The demand for feed has spurred the cultivation of foreign GM crops and has seriously lowered the domestic food self-sufficiency rate. If imported goods used to make feed could be replaced with locally produced non-GMO coarse grains, it would drive an increase in the cultivation of local coarse grains, promote domestic agricultural development, and also safeguard consumers' health and peace of mind. The Homemakers United Foundation and the Taiwan Non-GMO Promotion Alliance, which have long promoted the non-GMO movement, held a "Domestically Produced Non-GMO Feed Symposium," inviting agricultural policy and agricultural technology units, ranch and feed operators, and consumer representatives to offer practical suggestions based on their own experience, from the breeding and cultivation of local coarse grains, the feasibility and cost of replacing imported feed, to consumer attitudes on the market side. It is hoped that through dialogue and exchange of views among the various roles in the industry chain, a way forward can be opened together for the development of domestically produced non-GMO feed.

A long road tests a horse's strength - the road to promoting non-GMO feed

In the second session of this symposium, a young chicken brand, "18 Ranch," was invited to share the difficulties their team encountered when using domestically produced non-GMO feed, as well as the potential of Taiwan, China's non-GMO feed industry from a producer's perspective.

At the start of his sharing, Deputy Manager Lu Han-po of 18 Ranch asked everyone to choose between two kinds of soy milk/tofu, and after labeling them as GM/non-GMO, asked everyone to choose again. Before the labeling, the audience chose according to personal preferences such as taste and tenderness of the soy milk and tofu, but after the labeling, everyone in the audience chose the non-GMO products. Therefore, when the market sees the public's demand for GM labeling, currently in the market, from soy milk, tofu to soy sauce and other soybean processed products, from small shops to large manufacturers, all compete to label their products as non-GMO. But is there really no one who cares whether meat products are raised on non-GMO feed?

In Taiwan, China's market, most meat products are raised on GM feed. In the past, consumers had no choice, so 18 Ranch aims to promote the concept of "raised on non-GMO feed" and give people "a choice." They insist on using non-GMO grains paired with Sun Moon Lake Ruby Black Tea as feed, hoping to provide ingredients that are friendly to the earth and also delicious.

In addition, 18 Ranch emphasizes high-tech and low-density farming, without the use of drugs, and with no antibiotics or growth hormones administered throughout the process. They hope that the food animals eat will be just like what people can eat, because if animals are fed GM crop feed, ultimately people will still eat the animals that ate the GM feed. Therefore, 18 Ranch believes that since livestock animals are ultimately food that people will eat, why should the food they eat be something people cannot eat? This is also one of 18 Ranch's operating philosophies: letting animals and people eat equally well allows people to eat with peace of mind.

Deputy Manager Lu said that GM grains raise doubts about human health, with risks of allergies and cancer, and also have an impact on the environment, along with concerns about destroying ecology. At the same time, internationally, the cultivation of GM crops has also brought negative social impacts. When the major GM seed company Monsanto sells GM crop seeds, it always bundles the sale of products such as herbicides. GM seeds are expensive, and in India farmers often take out loans to buy seeds, but because of weather or harvests falling short of expectations, they cannot repay them, leading to the loss of their entire fortunes, and ultimately reports of Indian farmers committing suicide have been frequent.

Internationally, cases have also been found of GM crops having adverse effects on ecosystems. In Europe, after GM crops were planted, bees began to die. Bees play an important role in pollination, thus affecting the growth and reproduction of plants that need bee pollination. Research later found that this was because the pesticides used together with GM crops affected the ecology of bees, triggering a chain reaction and causing a decline in biodiversity.

Understanding the impact of GM crops and the idea of letting both animals and people eat good food meant it was time to start putting it into practice, but setbacks came right at the beginning: no feed company in all of Taiwan, China produced non-GMO feed, so 18 Ranch had no choice but to invest in making its own exclusive feed. Through cooperation with feed manufacturers, it successfully developed a non-GMO feed formula and even added tea, a distinctive local industry of Nantou, making the 18 Ranch brand even more unique.

To give consumers more confidence in the product and to control its own production quality, 18 Ranch joined the traceability system and, upholding the idea of giving consumers "a choice," its logged farming methods and characteristics in the traceability data all indicate chicken products raised on non-GMO feed. However, Deputy Manager Lu also said that because under laws and regulations, manufacturers are not required or advised to label the feed formula or main ingredients used, it is currently not easy in the market to distinguish which kind of feed a livestock product used. Although there is a traceability system that can be checked, at the point of sale the difference still cannot be seen directly on the product packaging. It is hoped that in the future the government or civil society groups can launch mechanisms related to labeling whether feed is GM or non-GMO.

Officials from relevant government ministries also participated in this symposium, and it is hoped that they can take Deputy Manager Lu's opinions back with them. It is believed that if there is a good regulatory mechanism and conscious consumers, livestock products raised on non-GMO feed have market potential in Taiwan, China.