Will the Fuli Farmers' Association's decision to drop its lawsuit against the Consumers' Foundation bring the controversy over quality control to an end?
Fuli Township Farmers' Association Gives Up Plans to Sue the Consumers' Foundation
The Fuli Township Farmers' Association was unhappy with the Consumers' Foundation's announcement that trace pesticide residues had been detected in Fuli organic brown rice, and with Hualien County Magistrate Fu Kun-chi declaring his backing to "seek justice for the farmers," it threatened to sue the Consumers' Foundation and seek 12 million yuan in compensation. But the tense standoff recently reversed. A NewsMarket reporter phoned acting general manager Li Su-ping yesterday, and Li Su-ping said that to avoid the brand suffering a second round of damage from media hype during litigation, the association had decided to drop the lawsuit.
Li Su-ping said dropping the lawsuit was a resolution of the farmers' association's board of directors. Because the farmers' association is a public-interest corporate body and the board members are all farmers' children who dislike litigation, she and the board chairman, although they felt the organic farmers had been wronged and hoped to sue for compensation, could only respect and accept the board's resolution.
Li Su-ping stressed that Fuli organic rice sent to the Liukung Agricultural Foundation's Agricultural Testing Center, the NCKU Green Product Testing Laboratory and the Council of Agriculture's Taiwan Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute all produced "zero detection" results for pesticides. As for the reporter's question about whether the Fuli farmers' association still had unpublished test reports, Li Su-ping firmly denied it.
Li Su-ping explained that Fuli organic rice shows zero pesticide detection from the field through the entire production line. But after this incident, the Fuli farmers' association will seek higher standards, including strengthening guidance for farmers, and County Magistrate Fu Kun-chi has also promised more subsidies, suggesting the association look for a more credible body to carry out certification in the future. (Fuli organic rice is currently certified by the NCKU Green Product Testing Laboratory.)
From the Hualien County Government's high-profile press conference demanding the Consumers' Foundation apologize or face a threatened lawsuit, and the Fuli farmers' association protesting with banners in front of the Hualien District Court against the Consumers' Foundation, to the recent abrupt reversal of the decision to drop the lawsuit, the shift has been so dramatic it is dizzying. Hualien County Agriculture Department Director Chang Chih-chao, on the day the Consumers' Foundation released the news on June 5 that trace pesticides had been detected in Fuli organic rice, said bluntly that this incident dealt a heavy blow to the reputation Hualien County had worked so hard to build for organic, toxin-free agriculture.
