Can the ingredients really be upgraded without increasing the school lunch budget?

To encourage school lunches to use domestically produced ingredients across the board, the Council of Agriculture announced recently that from now on, as long as group meal operators purchase agricultural products bearing the "Four Labels and One Q" -- the four labels of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), Certified Agricultural Standards (CAS), Traceable Agricultural Products (TGAP), and organic agricultural products, plus the QRcode production traceability label -- operators may be exempt from self-inspection, with agricultural authorities fully taking on the responsibility of gatekeeping.

Able to provide schoolchildren with safe ingredients while saving substantial inspection costs, group meal operators should logically welcome this, but when upstream and downstream actually interviewed manufacturers in Taipei, New Taipei, Taichung, and Yunlin, each reflected various difficulties on the implementation level, pointing directly at policy blind spots.

Labeled ingredients cost more, who absorbs it?

Peng Guangxian, head of the business department at Taichung City's Yixiang Company, said that about 30% of the fresh produce their company currently uses carries the "Four Labels and One Q." If everything were switched to labeled products, the price per meal would need to rise by more than 10 yuan. Even though they could save several hundred thousand in inspection fees a year, it would still be far from enough to cover the difference.

Nutritional lunch group meal service is getting harder and harder to run, with operators shutting down one by one, in city and countryside alike. Peng Guangxian said, "In ROC year 88 (1999), Taichung City had 16 companies; now only 5 are left. Lunch prices have barely been adjusted for over a decade." Even though the Taichung City government now subsidizes an extra 5 yuan, it is a conditional subsidy that must be used for non-GMO, locally sourced organic ingredients, added fruit, and so on, so the profit improvement for operators is quite limited.

Liu Xiaojing, assistant manager of New Taipei City's Tongxian Company, believes that if the government wants to gatekeep, operators are of course happy to see it succeed. But if labeled produce is to be used while lunch prices are not adjusted, "it will crowd out the other dishes." She gave an example: some schools in Taipei City require all ingredients to meet labeling standards such as CAS, and the menu was reduced from four dishes and one soup to three dishes and one soup.

Yunlin County has the lowest school lunch prices in the country, at only about 25-30 yuan per meal. Huang Xinyun, head of Meijing Company, calculated that the money actually spent on purchasing ingredients is only 12-13 yuan, not even half of Taipei's, so how could one even talk about using labeled produce?

Huang Xinyun said bluntly, "The government issues one official document and expects everyone to comply? If you don't consider the urban-rural gap, it's all empty talk." The labeled vegetables eaten by northern schools are all grown in Yunlin, yet Yunlin's children cannot eat them.

Taking the vegetables Meijing purchases, only about 10% carry labels. If the proportion is to be increased, the county government and schools must fully communicate with parents about the reason for the price increase. Huang Xinyun said, "Adding just 200 yuan a month could improve the quality of children's 20 lunches. That should be very worthwhile -- just a casual trip to a night market costs more than 200 yuan!"

Using only labeled ingredients limits variety and quantity

Whether the quantity of "Four Labels and One Q" vegetables is enough to supply lunches nationwide is also a focus of controversy. Although the Agriculture and Food Agency guarantees it is sufficient, Gao Jiahong, chair of the Safety Committee of the Taipei City Lunch Box Association, analyzed that looking only at leafy vegetables, the quantity should be enough; however, for root and stem vegetables and frozen vegetables commonly used on typhoon days, a considerable proportion are imported from abroad, and if all were to be switched to domestic, there would likely be great difficulty.

Peng Guangxian also pointed out that if domestic produce with labels were used across the board, both variety and quantity would be limited. "If you force it, the repetition in dishes will be very high." And the variety of green vegetables students originally liked was already very few; cabbage and cauliflower are more popular, while bok choy, Chinese kale, or oilseed rape would all be left in piles -- are farmers supposed to grow only these few kinds of vegetables?

Who guarantees the credibility of the labels?

"The government wants to do source management, but what are the supporting measures? Do I really not need to test at all, and just use it blindfolded?" Luo Yiming, deputy general manager of Taichung City's Xiang Hao Jia, said that nowadays consumers do not even trust organic labels that much; if the government wants to provide a guarantee, it must clearly explain how it will strictly control things, so that operators and consumers can feel at ease. Otherwise, even with labels, operators would still have to conduct self-inspection.

Gao Jiahong pointed out that the credibility of each label under "Four Labels and One Q" is not the same. "GAP and QRcode are most often criticized and must be adjusted, otherwise the Council of Agriculture will face great difficulties in future management." He believes that compared with traceable agricultural products, CAS, and organic labels, which have third-party verification, GAP and QRcode have not undergone safety inspection, so their effectiveness is far inferior. Even if operators use produce with the latter two labels, self-inspection is still unavoidable.

Peng Guangxian also pointed out that labels leave room for fraud, and if a trusted procurement channel is not established, "unlabeled vegetables may slip out and mix in with the labeled ones."

Whether contracts between schools and group meal manufacturers can be revised along with the new policy is also a key point. Regardless of whether labeled ingredients are chosen, if schools still require operators to conduct self-inspection, manufacturers must still comply.

Guiding farmers to obtain labels requires concrete measures

Group meal operators all affirm the government's good intention to gatekeep domestic ingredients, but they also unanimously believe that since it is to be done, there must be a budget -- not necessarily subsidizing operators, but it should be used even more for guiding farmers.

Luo Yiming has already sensed that organic vegetable prices are beginning to stir. He believes that if the government wants to encourage farmers to obtain labels, it should provide subsidies to keep supply prices from fluctuating too much.

Part of the vegetables used by Yixiang are grown under direct contract with farmers, with a self-established trust mechanism. Peng Guangxian said he purchases from farmers at the auction market price plus 20%; if pesticide residue is detected, the farmer must be fined and bear the inspection cost; but if three consecutive inspections show no problems, the company awards the farmer a 10,000-yuan bonus. Although such a system has no labels, it can still ensure ingredient safety.

"If labels are to be done, how much effort must farmers expend, and who will guide them? What guarantees can they be given?" Peng Guangxian's question is also the question of other group meal operators and farmers.

Also showing: Are children in remote areas not treasures? School lunch 60 yuan in Taipei, 18 yuan per meal in Yunlin

(This article was supported by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation specifically for personnel expenses, but it completely does not interfere with news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring journalistic independence.)