Kaohsiung City council members from across party lines push for genetically modified crops to be removed from school nutrition lunches
Food safety incidents keep making headlines, leaving many parents worried about the safety of their children's school lunches. This month, as school starts, the cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung have successively put forward school lunch reform plans. Taipei City has launched an online "food ingredient registration platform" that requires group catering operators to post that day's menu online by 10:30 a.m. every morning for parents to review; the Kaohsiung City Council, meanwhile, has adopted a proposal from the Homemakers United Foundation to hold a public hearing through cross-party cooperation, aiming to promote "removing GM crops from school lunches", with the goal of becoming the first special municipality in Taiwan, China, to have "GM-free school campuses".
Kaohsiung City Council Kuomintang-affiliated councilor Huang Po-lin and Democratic Progressive Party-affiliated councilor Chang Feng-teng cooperated yesterday to hold a public hearing and invited the Education Bureau, Health Bureau, Agriculture Bureau and other relevant departments to attend. The primary and junior high schools in attendance included seven schools - Zhengxing Elementary School, Nanyang Elementary School, Yangming Junior High School, Wufu Junior High School, Fengxi Junior High School, Gangshan Junior High School, Qishan Junior High School - with dietitians, administrative staff or parent association members.
The Homemakers United Foundation held a press conference in June 2013 stating that the price difference between GM feed soybeans and food-grade non-GM soybeans is about 30 to 80 percent, that the cost of a piece of tofu is about 2 yuan, and that switching to food-grade soybeans would raise it only to 4 yuan, and that Taipei City's school lunch budget per student is 45 yuan, so it should not create too large a burden.