Organic Vegetable Shortage: Yilan School Lunches Hope More Small Farmers Will Join Production

Twenty years ago, Huang Wang-chieh was twenty-seven years old when he quit his job at a semiconductor factory and resolved to return to his hometown of Zhuangwei in Yilan to farm. He threw himself into studying biological pest control cultivation techniques, hoping to grow organic vegetables that consumers could buy with confidence. He sold them himself along the streets, set up stalls to spread the word, and even created his own brand, building up sales channels step by step. Now he has shifted to a team strategy, working with more than a dozen organic farming friends to collectively supply vegetables to Yilan County's elementary and middle schools, so that Yilan's children can eat an organic vegetable dish every two weeks.

Yilan School Lunches Use Locally Grown Ingredients

Last October, the Yilan County Government began promoting the use of locally grown organic vegetables in elementary and middle school lunches. In the first semester, students ate organic rice one day a week; this semester, they eat organic vegetables once every two weeks. Yilan County has a total of 101 elementary and middle schools and 46,000 students. The supply of organic rice for one meal a week is stable, but the supply of organic vegetables is not quite sufficient. To serve one organic vegetable dish every week, 4,700 kg would be needed, but the farming friends currently supplying organic vegetables can provide only about 2,400 kg per week, so the schedule was changed to organic vegetables once every two weeks.

Yilan County's school nutrition lunches emphasize "locally grown ingredients," and it is the only county or city in the country to require the use of locally grown ingredients. Yang Huai-chu, section chief of the Agricultural Affairs Section of the Yilan County Agriculture Department, said that Yilan County's organic farming area has increased nearly fivefold over eight years, from 80.73 hectares to 433 hectares today. "To encourage farming friends to take up or expand organic farming area, our Agriculture Department has drawn up some guidance measures, and using locally grown organic vegetables in school nutrition lunches is one of those plans."

Organic Food in School Nutrition Lunches Provides Stable Demand

(This article was funded by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation for personnel expenses under a project, but the foundation does not interfere at all with news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring news independence.)