The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus has launched a petition calling for stricter penalties on illegal pork imports, the introduction of specialized codes to identify firms that use meat containing ractopamine and clear product labeling, it said yesterday.
The government has been pushing ahead with its plan to ease restrictions on US pork and beef imports from Jan. 1 next year, even though public debate on the issue continues to rage, the caucus said.
It said that it launched the petition on the National Development Council’s Public Policy Network Participation Platform to better gauge public opinion and reach a consensus on the issue.
The petition passed a review on Thursday and would be open until Dec. 8. There were 1,133 signatories as of press time last night.
The government must respond to the petition if it collects at least 5,000 signatures.
The petition contains three demands, all of which would require amending the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
First, it calls for stringent enforcement of import controls and heightened penalties to ensure that packaging on remanufactured products, mixed goods and food additives clearly indicates whether they contain ractopamine.
Second, a specialized coding system should be implemented to better identify firms that import products containing ractopamine, the petition says.
Last, it calls for amending food labeling regulations to require clear labeling of food products or additives that contain ractopamine.
The caucus said that it hopes to collate public opinion to show the government how deeply people care about food safety.
Through the process, the Democratic Progressive Party would hopefully revive its people-centric founding spirit and refrain from sacrificing public health for political gains, it added.
In related news, the New Taipei City Government yesterday announced that it would update its contracts with school lunch providers to ensure the exclusive use of domestically produced pork and beef in students’ meals.
The city government would by the end of this year update the contracts to impose penalties on lunch providers that use imported meat, ensuring a ractopamine-free school environment for students up to age 18, it said.
The policy is only meant to reassure parents, as meal providers have been exclusively using domestically produced pork for a long time, New Taipei City Boxed Food Commercial Association chairman Cheng Te-hsing (鄭得興) said.
The price of domestic pork is expected to increase due to inspection and testing costs once the eased import regulations take effect, Cheng said.
Because of that, “a slight price increase will be necessary,” Cheng said, urging the central government to make good on its promise to raise its reward for using fully certified ingredients to NT$6 per school lunch from NT$3.5 per meal.
As preschools and daycare centers are not subjected to “nutritious lunch” contract regulations and would therefore not be penalized for using pork containing ractopamine, New Taipei City Infant and Child Care Association representative and Sijhih Chunghou Public Daycare Center director Pao Chung-ming (包崇明) vowed transparency.
Pao promised that his center would only provide never-frozen meat and display certification of origin to parents and officials, as well as on Facebook.
Additional reporting by Chen Hsin-yu
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