Southern Food and Agriculture Education Vision Forum and Ugly Produce Banquet to Debut on December 5

We are a group of local civic organizations based in Tainan and Kaohsiung that have long paid attention to food and agriculture issues and practiced them firsthand. In view of our hope that the promotion of food and agriculture education would become more solid and comprehensive, in October 2014 (ROC year 103) we jointly formed the "Southern Food and Agriculture Education Alliance" (abbreviated as the Southern Food Alliance). The alliance's members include concerned groups from three dimensions: consumption (food), production (agriculture), and education (nurturing), with a total of 12 organizations forming the alliance, and the number is continuing to grow. In addition, we believe that beyond the autonomous efforts of civil society, the public sector should also introduce policy measures to co-create a vision. This is especially true for business that spans multiple bureaus and departments, which urgently needs the energy of county and city government leaders to guide the public sector forward and to integrate the allocation of resources.

In January of this year, after participating in the "Food and Agriculture Legislation Forum" held in the northern region, we felt deeply that the south should not be absent from the push for food and agriculture legislation. Therefore, we began advocating for public-private collaboration to advance the southern governments in enacting self-governance ordinances or key regulations related to food and agriculture education, and thus planned to hold the 'Southern Food @ Agriculture @ Education Vision Forum and Ugly Produce Banquet' in Kaohsiung in the south. The main axis of the forum is to explore food and agriculture education policy under local self-governance and cases of civil society food and agriculture education promotion, and to shape a southern food and agriculture education vision declaration.
This forum will make a splendid debut at 9 a.m. on December 5 at the Kaohsiung Women's Center. In addition to sharing civil society practice cases, in the afternoon session [Strategies for Promoting Food and Agriculture Education at the Local Level], representatives of the Kaohsiung and Tainan city governments will engage in direct dialogue with 150 citizens' groups from across Taiwan as well as parents, teachers, and children concerned about the issues, and afterward the two county and city governments' promises in the [Food and Agriculture Education Declaration] will be presented.