Professional enhancement for food safety inspections: Ministry of Health and Welfare signs memorandum of cooperation with National Taiwan University
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang and National Taiwan University President Yang Pan-chyr signed a food safety cooperation memorandum today. NTU has now established a Food Safety Center, which will integrate cross-college resources from medicine, public health management, and social sciences to assist the Ministry of Health and Welfare in assessing food safety risks and training personnel to guide Taiwan's food inspection system. Chiang Yu-mei stated that she hopes NTU's Food Safety Center can train more personnel with inspection capabilities and help the government guide second-tier quality control certification bodies.
NTU Establishes Food Safety Center to Participate in Risk and Legal Assessment and Enhance Food Safety Expertise
At the food safety cooperation memorandum ceremony, the deans of eight colleges including NTU's College of Medicine, College of Bioresources and Agriculture, College of Social Sciences, and College of Law all attended. National Taiwan University President Yang Pan-chyr stated that the Food Safety Center established by NTU this time will integrate across colleges, with the vice president coordinating and consolidating efforts, hoping to use the power of academia to assist the government in solving the nation's food safety problems.
NTU President Yang Pan-chyr stated that Taiwan has trained many doctoral students, all aiming for teaching positions, but under Taiwan's increasingly declining birthrate, he hopes that through cooperation between schools, government departments, and industry, students can have more diverse development in the future. Yang Pan-chyr said that Taiwan's salaries are relatively uncompetitive, and talent easily flows to other countries. In response to this trend, retaining talent is very important.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang stated that he has considerable confidence in his alma mater's talent cultivation. Through talent development and the enhancement of knowledge and technology, he believes that this cooperation memorandum signed with NTU is not merely a formality, and that NTU's Food Safety Center will subsequently exert substantial influence, and Taiwan's food safety problems will certainly improve. Unlike past cooperation memoranda signed between the Ministry of Health and Welfare and academia, which were for single events only, Chiang Been-huang said this time it is a more comprehensive cross-college effort.
Hsu Fu, professor of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at National Taiwan University, said that before NTU and the Ministry of Health and Welfare signed the memorandum, three preparatory meetings had already been held, led by NTU Vice President Chen Liang-gee, with the dean of the College of Bioresources and Agriculture serving as director of the Food Safety Center. The currently established NTU Food Safety Center will devote itself to developing four major directions, including environment- and medicine-related risk assessment, implementation of domestic and international food safety-related legal and social science research, training food safety professionals, and research and development of food safety-related science and technology, hoping to assist the government in inspecting relevant units in the future and guarding Taiwan's food safety.
Under the three-tier quality control principle for food safety, the first tier of quality control is self-management by businesses, the second tier is verification by independent third-party institutions, and the third tier is government inspection and evaluation. Chiang Yu-mei stated that the government does not have enough manpower for inspection, and she hopes NTU's Food Safety Center can train more personnel with inspection capabilities, help the government carry out food risk management in Taiwan, and guide second-tier quality control certification bodies.
Student Volunteers Form Food Guardian Alliance for Education and Outreach
On October 22 last year, the Ministry of Health and Welfare invited food and nutrition-related departments from universities and colleges, and planned to form a "Food Guardian Alliance" this year to guard against food safety problems in the form of student volunteers, allowing food and nutrition-related department students to join the food inspection system.
In mid-September this year, Taipei Medical University, commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, carried out the "Food Safety Guardian Alliance" project, inviting teachers and students from food and nutrition-related departments across universities and colleges nationwide to serve as seed lecturers for the alliance and conduct food safety awareness education and promotion on campuses nationwide.
Acting Director-General of the FDA under the Ministry of Health and Welfare Chiang Yu-mei said that the "Food Guardian Alliance" mainly promotes the concept of food safety in communities through Taiwan's food science and technology and nutrition students, compiling teaching materials and manuals so that the public can better understand food safety.
Ms. Chen, project executor of TMU's "Food Guardian Alliance," stated that the project focuses mainly on promoting food safety education. Currently, food and nutrition-related departments at major universities and colleges across northern, central, and southern Taiwan have established 5 alliance centers and 10 seed education departments, including Fu Jen Catholic University, Chinese Culture University, China Medical University, Chung Shan Medical University, and Chang Jung Christian University. Students from these food and nutrition-related departments will participate in training workshops held by the alliance and serve as seed teachers to promote correct food safety and hygiene education at various junior high and elementary schools.
Ms. Chen said that the "Food Guardian Alliance" has printed booklets introducing food labels, how to choose healthy and safe food, the safe use of plastic containers, and so on. The "Food Guardian Alliance" seed lecturers have currently held 100 lectures, reaching more than 10,000 students.
Originally, the Ministry of Health and Welfare also planned to let food and nutrition-related department students join the food inspection system. Ms. Chen stated that the current project places primary emphasis on education and outreach.