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How will the non-GMO lunch policy be implemented? Taipei City Government promises to hold a symposium

General News By Emily Carter 0 views

According to a NewsMarket report on May 23, Taipei City Government Deputy Secretary-General Li Wen-ying appeared at the Taiwan event in response to the global March Against Monsanto and stated, "Mayor Ko supports the policy of promoting the use of non-GMO and organic ingredients in school lunches, but the concerns raised by many councilors are not unreasonable. The city government will hold a forum within one month as soon as possible, inviting groups from all sides to discuss the policy of using non-GMO ingredients in school lunches.". After nearly a week of confusion over concerns that the non-GMO school lunch policy would be broken, the Taipei City Government finally made an initial positive response.

The incident began last Monday, May 18, when Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je went to the city council to give a special report, and when asked by councilors about the certification and oversight of non-GMO ingredients in school lunches, he admitted, "At present there is no clear evidence of the health effects of GMO foods, and 95% of Taiwan's soybeans are genetically modified, so it seems impossible to have non-GMO. The policy needs to be revised.".

What is confusing is that only half a year earlier, Ko Wen-je, then a mayoral candidate, personally signed the "Keep GMO ingredients out of school lunches" pledge. After taking office, he first formed a food safety committee and approved an SOP for the school lunch supply process, then issued a press release instructing each school's lunch committee that "through investigation and resolution, lunch fees may be flexibly adjusted, with an upper limit of NT$10, and the price may be used to increase the variety of ingredients and the number of inspections, increase the frequency of supplying non-GMO and organic products, and reduce the use of heavily processed products. For ordinary students, the fee increase is borne by parents; for students from low-income families, the fee increase is subsidized by the city government.", as the first-stage policy implementation plan. Why, in just six months, has the mayor's stance on an important pre-election school food safety pledge changed so greatly?

However, if one observes the statements made in May of this year by city government personnel in charge of school lunch-related affairs, they seem somewhat inconsistent with the mayor's attitude.

On May 7, Taipei City Councilor Li Yen-hsiu held a press conference to announce the results of a questionnaire survey of elementary school children's parents on school lunches, in which as many as 93% of parents supported fully adopting "non-genetically modified foods." Accordingly, she demanded that the Taipei City Government should promptly change school lunches entirely to non-GMO ingredients, but Department of Education Chief Secretary Chen stated, "Schools have differing attitudes, and it cannot be made mandatory; only stronger promotion can be used.".

On May 13, a Taipei city councilor about to run for legislator criticized on Facebook that spending the increased lunch money in Taipei on "high-end stuff" such as non-GMO and organic was outrageous, amounting to "shielding specific suppliers." He believed that most parents would rather have an extra egg and more meat, and further questioned that if some high-income parents "care about organic, why not have their children bring their own lunchboxes." To dispel councilors' misunderstanding of the policy, the Taipei City Department of Education specifically issued a press release clarifying that "if a school wishes to adjust the lunch price for a school year, it should first conduct a cost analysis through the school lunch supply committee, discuss it fully, and conduct a general willingness survey of the parents of students ordering meals. More than 70% must be recovered, and more than 60% of those must agree; only after confirmation by the group lunch supply committee may the adjustment be made.", clearly pointing out that each school's price increase follows a certain procedure and cannot be controlled by a minority of parents.

Therefore, from another perspective, the Taipei City Government only takes a position of encouragement rather than mandate regarding the use of non-GMO ingredients in each school's lunches, returning this autonomous decision-making power to schools and parents, and each school handles it differently according to its own circumstances and parents' opinions.

During this period, we successively wrote media submissions (Note 1) from the perspectives of the policy implementation strategies of the six special municipalities, public participation, scientific understanding, and environmental education, calling on the Taipei City Government to adopt a more proactive attitude. In addition, because members of the public and netizens concerned about the school lunch issue suggested first communicating the policy through official channels, starting on May 19, members of our action team called the Taipei City Department of Education's Division of Sports and Health Care for several consecutive days to ask about the actual situation and what the result of what Mayor Ko said he would "take back for deliberation" actually was.

For the first few days, section staff and dietitians simply responded by phone that "the policy has not changed," until May 22, when we finally communicated directly by phone with the section chief of the Taipei City Division of Sports and Health Care and received the initial response that "whether each school's lunch switches to non-GMO ingredients remains one of the above five options. The Taipei City Department of Education respects the resolutions of each school's lunch supply committee, and the city government will not interfere with the decisions of students' parents or the schools.". We then immediately wrote an article (Note 2) calling on the Taipei City Government, on the premise of information disclosure, to promptly publish the conclusions of its deliberation and formally convene a public discussion platform such as a public hearing to gather opinions from all sides as a reference basis for policy implementation, and finally received a favorable promise from the Taipei City Government.

Taipei City is the capital, and every word and action of Mayor Ko is repeatedly the focus of spotlights and news reports. We sincerely hope that Mayor Ko can uphold the consistent spirit of open government and citizen participation, and that before announcing adjustments to major policies, he should provide a communication platform, consolidate opinions from all sides, and reach consensus before proceeding. We look forward to using the forum promised by Deputy Secretary-General Li of the city government to carry out as much dialogue as possible on suggestions for implementing the policy, and through cooperation among the government, schools, industry, parents, and advocacy groups, to realize the vision of GMO-free school campuses as soon as possible.

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Note 2

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