Ten restaurants in Yilan become the first in Taiwan, China to promote domestically produced organic ingredients

Just as farmland in Changhua and Kaohsiung is mired in concerns over wastewater pollution, Yilan County, which actively promotes green living, has once again set a national first: ten restaurants have teamed up with organic farmers to design refined set meals using organic rice, organic lotus, and organic vegetables, modeled on Japan's "green lantern" system that supports domestically produced ingredients. Participating restaurants hang a ladybug motif at their entrance symbolizing organic cultivation, and also sell agricultural products, so that visitors can eat and take something home, putting friendly production and a low-carbon economy into practice.

Restaurants use domestic ingredients, certified by the "five-heart" ladybug label

Food safety problems keep emerging, indirectly exposing the modern worry of the separation between people and their food. In 2005, in order to raise the food self-sufficiency rate and encourage restaurants to use fresh ingredients delivered directly from local sources, Japan launched the Green Lantern Movement as a civil-society initiative: as long as a restaurant actively uses domestic ingredients, it can hang at its entrance a green lantern bearing the words "a shop that supports local products"; the lantern also carries a star rating, with one star drawn when domestic ingredient use reaches 50%, two stars at 60%, and so on.

In recent years Yilan has spared no effort in promoting organic farming, but farmers have struggled to find a market. Huang Chang-ju, director of the Organic Industry Development Center at National Yilan University, had a sudden inspiration and thought, why not cooperate with local restaurants, apply to the Agriculture and Food Agency for a subsidy, and start promoting the "Heart of Organic, Gourmet Restaurants" program this year, modeled on Japan's green lantern system, encouraging restaurants that use domestic ingredients to hang a ladybug motif.

Huang Chang-ju explained that the ladybug is the natural enemy of many agricultural pests; a single ladybug can eat 300 aphids in a day, but ladybugs are very sensitive to the environment and are an important indicator of organic agriculture, which is why they became the face of this campaign. A restaurant that offers one dish made with domestic organic ingredients can draw one heart; offering two kinds of organic ingredients earns two hearts, and according to the number of different supply categories they are graded as "five-heart". So far ten Yilan restaurants have responded.