The origin of the insecticide DDT found in tea producer Stornaway’s (英國藍) rose tea has still not been clarified, once again showing the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s inability to carry out proper food-safety checks. Despite the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Executive Yuan’s new Food Safety Office which opened last year, food scandal after food scandal continue to appear, leaving consumers speechless.
Although food safety is a global issue, food-related scandals are not as prevalent in other nations as they are in Taiwan. Although the government has enforced stricter penalties and raised fines to between NT$60,000 and NT$200 million (US$1,932 and US$6.44 million), courts are mostly issuing light punishment for offenders in food safety cases.
For example, a food manufacturer that had been feeding us with bleached white bean sprouts for 10 years got a slap-on-the-wrist penalty of eight months in prison, commutable to a fine. In the Flavor Full (富味鄉) tainted oil scandal, after chief executive Chen Wen-nan (陳文南) admitted to supplementing cooking oil with low-quality fillers, judges gave him a lenient sentence of one year and four months with two years probation, essentially giving other insincere manufacturers more incentive to continue illegitimate practices.
Such rulings also put the public in a state of unease regarding food safety. Judges maintain that the main rationale behind their verdicts was lack of concrete evidence from authorities proving that the tainted food products were harmful to public health. Finding ways to strengthen supporting evidence would require related government departments to gather teams of academics, experts and research institutions to collaborate in forming a standard operating procedure to find scientifically-backed evidence that makes it impossible for manufacturers of inferior products to hide.
ORGANIC VEGETABLES
Apart from the light penalties given to food safety violators, government officials have also grown accustomed to using legislation rather than law enforcement to solve food safety problems. Courts have still not finalized the verdict for Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) after the conglomerate was found to have used tainted oil in its products, and people are beginning to suspect that it too will eventually end up with a mild sentence.
It is no surprise that food scandals continue to come out one after another, such as runbing wrappers (潤餅皮) containing toxic sulfoxylate, tainted kelp and seasonings, stomach medicine containing industrial magnesium, “mislabeled” food products imported from five Japanese prefectures affected by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture in 2011, tainted tea drinks and more.
Yet, government officials plead ignorance and even refuse to open up a public dialogue, causing consumers to lose faith in the effectiveness of the government’s food safety checks and once again prove that food safety controls are not stringently standardized. When it comes to determining whether or not controls and implementations are effective, a look at the 80 percent approval rating of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) after the effective demolition of illegal rooftop structures should leave the government embarrassed.
Safe food is something that should come from producers and not something that should depend on government tests. If food safety depended only on the government’s ability to test products on the market, inspection staff would never be sufficient.
As many raw materials originate from the agricultural sector, the government is introducing a “Food and Agricultural Education” program to schools, which has been popularized in Japan to strengthen source checks. In this program, areas of farmland are to be developed within schools, and elementary and junior-high school students are to be given a meal with organic vegetables once a week and shown how to plant rice.
FUNDAMENTAL DUTY
While such activities are set to help promote organic and safe agricultural practices, the Japanese government first passed the Basic Act on Food Education which makes food education compulsory and charges government departments with its implementation. For example, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, have drafted a hill farming and fishing village exchange program for school children.
Taiwan can not just be a copycat, as we have our own food and agricultural problems. Government departments should review agriculture, food safety, environmental protection, culture and related issues from a perspective of sustainable national development and show that they can carry out genuine food and raw material source management.
Giving citizens freedom from living in fear is the most fundamental duty of the government. Yet, no matter how good the system or its measures are, individuals must still be relied on for their implementation.
If Taiwanese do not want to live in fear indefinitely, they should stop condoning incompetent officials. People should tell them that they will be fired if they do not do their job properly. This is the only way to get these officials to stay on their toes and make necessary reforms.
Voting is a weapon for citizens in democratic countries to tame unruly officials. So, if you want food safety, please pick up that ballot and vote.
Du Yu is chief executive officer of the Chen-Li Task Force for Agricultural Reform.
Translated by Zane Kheir
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