The chairman of the Tofu Association leads the opposition to GMOs, saying non-GMO tofu is just too cute.

Yesterday, at the baking show held at the Nangang Exhibition Hall, a press conference and forum titled "Careful, GMOs Are Right Beside You" was co-hosted by the NTU Seed Laboratory, the Homemakers United Foundation, Xiyuanfang, Lianhua Industrial, and the Green Front Association. Among the familiar faces promoting GMO-free farming regions, there appeared a rather unexpected special guest: the silver-haired Zhan Wuxiong, chairman of the National Federation of the Republic of China Tofu Association.

Zhan Wuxiong began making tofu at the age of ten, and has been doing so for a full sixty years; this year he is exactly seventy. Originally, all his raw material was bulk-imported select soybeans, until 1996, when the American Soybean Association introduced the first batch of food-grade soybeans and asked a few manufacturers in northern, central, and southern Taiwan to try them, completely overturning Zhan Wuxiong's decades of practical experience: "Because the products made from them were just too lovely. The soy milk was like tea, with a sweet aftertaste, and the tofu and dried tofu were fragrant and chewy."

Perhaps only a tofu artisan who has devoted his whole life to the craft would describe soy milk and tofu as "lovely."

So Zhan Wuxiong could never go back. From then on he used only food-grade soybeans as raw material, and to promote them, he did not raise prices. It was also then that he discovered that soybeans are divided into GM and non-GM, that food-grade soybeans are always non-GM and of a single variety, while bulk-imported soybeans are a mix of varieties, with the proportion of GM increasing sharply year by year.

Even setting aside the GMO controversy, food-grade soybean varieties are bred specifically for making food products; compared with ordinary soybeans grown for salad oil and animal feed, the control processes from cultivation to storage and transport are worlds apart, and the quality of the soy milk and tofu made from them is immediately distinguishable.

To promote non-GM soy products, Zhan Wuxiong wore himself out explaining to people in the vegetable markets, and earnestly preached to member manufacturers, yet the results were poor. Consumers supported his products simply because they tasted good, and their understanding of GMO risks remained very weak, so most manufacturers had no incentive to change, especially since it involved rising costs. He also consulted scholars and experts about this, but most of the teachers actually avoided the topic.

Watching the entire soy products market in Taiwan, China almost completely fall, while evidence that GM crops are harmful to human health grew by the day, Zhan Wuxiong was deeply worried but powerless. He wanted to speak out loudly, but quite a few people discouraged him: The government does not care, so saying these things will only offend people and do you no good, so why bother?

"The people of surrounding countries, including Japan, South Korea, China, Malaysia, and Vietnam, all eat non-GM soybeans. I have always wondered why our government does not dare to do this." It was not until he met Professor Guo Huaren and companions from the Homemakers United Foundation and other groups that Zhan Wuxiong finally stepped forward at yesterday's forum and spoke out passionately.

He called on the group-meal operators, the largest consumers of processed bean products, to take the lead in changing and switch to non-GM soybeans as raw material. If the volume is large, procurement costs will come down, and especially at the consumer end, the price actually will not be much higher. He also hoped that religious groups could step forward and lead the broad vegetarian community to pay attention to the risks of GM soybeans.

As chairman of the Tofu Association yet taking the lead against GMOs, Zhan Wuxiong must surely have made up his mind to risk public anger. "After being suppressed for so many years, at last I can say it out loud." The force supporting him is perhaps a corporate conscience as pure as tofu for sixty years.