Mon, Mar 21, 2022 page3

• INTERVIEW: Carbon footprint labels eyed for food products

  • By Yang Yuan-ting and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  All major agricultural products in Taiwan, including rice, chicken and pork, as well as fish and other aquaculture products, are one day to be sold with carbon footprint details on the label, Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said.

  Chen made the remarks in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) on Wednesday, during which he talked about carbon footprint labeling, rural power supply and other issues.

  Consumers are increasingly conscious of the carbon footprint of the food products that they buy, but few products in Taiwan include such details on the packaging, Chen said.

  

  Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung speaks during an interview in Taipei on Wednesday.

  Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

  “Labels are not yet required to include such information, but someday it will be needed if we want to have a society with net-zero emissions,” he said. “There are already formulas to follow, such as how much carbon dioxide is emitted per kilogram of meat produced and how much is emitted during transportation.”

  Having labels that show consumers the carbon footprint of foods would help them better understand that imported foods have a hidden cost that locally produced foods do not have, he said.

  Taiwan relies heavily on imports of various grains, such as soybeans and corn, so to reduce the carbon footprint of these products, more local land would need to be allotted to growing them, he said.

  “We aim to grow locally at least 10 percent of the soybeans we consume, and plan to allot 30,000 hectares apiece for corn and sorghum,” he said. “In the future, we hope to grow locally the sorghum used by Kinmen’s sorghum liquor industry.”

  The council has also prioritized the development of green energy sources, he said.

  For example, the council is focusing on the development of circular agriculture, which converts agricultural waste into biogas for the generation of electricity, Chen said.

  “Rural farmers could be self-reliant as far as meeting their electricity needs, and could generate extra income by selling surplus electricity back to the grid,” he said.

  President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) plan to transition Taiwan to renewable sources of energy envisions farmers producing 12 gigawatts of green energy, he said.

  The council is this year to set up 10 sites, including in Changhua and Chiayi counties, that demonstrate circular agriculture.

  “In Belgium, a town has already done this. The community of 30,000 people generates all of its power needs through agriculturally produced biogas,” he said. “The town’s power plant, which uses food and animal waste to generate biogas, is highly automated and needs only three people to operate it.”

  Through biogas, solar panels installed on the roofs of farmhouses and chicken coops, and other sources of green energy, all farming communities in Taiwan could generate all of their own power, he said.

  Another goals is to decentralize the power grid, he added.

  In related news, Chen on Saturday announced a planned law that would regulate industry standards so that businesses can tap into the pet care market.

  The draft bill would authorize the creation of a system of certificates for animal care products, such as food, healthcare and insurance products, under the auspices of animal protection authorities, he said.

  Taiwanese keep more than 2.5 million cats and dogs as pets, with the figure increasing by about 10 percent annually, Chen said.

  The council holds a monthly briefing on the bill’s progress, he said, adding that Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) is supporting the project.

  The bill would require staffing at animal welfare authorities to increase, he said.

  The council estimates that businesses catering to pets generate NT$60 billion (US$2.12 billion) per year, which the bill would promote further, Chen said.

  Additional reporting by Yang Chin-cheng
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