[New Taipei City News] New Taipei City Government was invited by ORGANIC UA to participate in the GRASS (Greener Agriculture for a Sustainable Sea) Conference today (December 9) online to share the experience of promoting organic school lunch policies with organic farming organizations with participants from Finland, Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany, and other countries.
The theme of this year’s conference is GRASS, which means “green grass,” symbolizing the abbreviation of “Greener Agriculture for a Sustainable Sea,” the core idea of the event. The two-day agenda includes Challenges for agro-education, the impact and countermeasures of climate change on agriculture (e.g., honey production), global and regional policy of green agriculture, and experience sharing from Taiwan, which is more than 8,000 kilometers away; participants are from Ukraine, Latvia, Sweden, and Denmark, people think about how to use organic school lunch to allow children in schools, kindergartens and nurseries to enjoy healthy organic farming products, and to increase farmers’ income, and the development of the overall organic industry.
This year (February 24, 2020), New Taipei City Government and IFOAM (International Federal of Organic Agriculture Movement), the world’s largest non-governmental organic agriculture organization, jointly established the Center of Excellence for Intelligent Organic Marketing in Asia (CEIOMA) and held the opening ceremony. At the same time, Eugene Milovanov, director of IFOAM Eurasian and chairman of ORGANIC UA, shared his thoughts about future global trade trends. After visiting Taiwan to understand more about Taiwan’s organic industry, Eugene Milovanov the importance of public procurement support and invited New Taipei City Government to share its governance experience.
Wen Lee, the Commissioner of Agriculture Department of New Taipei City Government, noticed that since the promotion of organic school lunch in New Taipei City, 666 schools, public nurseries and kindergartens have participated in the policy, benefiting 360,000 schoolchildren, and the weekly consumption of organic vegetables is about 39 tons. This successful experience led all counties and cities in Taiwan to follow up in response, bringing New Taipei City to the world stage.
Agriculture Department stated that New Taipei City Government will cooperate with ALGOA (Asian Local Governments for Organic Agriculture) to set up the ALGOA Center for Public Procurement (ACPP) in New Taipei City, committed to promoting organic school meals in schools and public kitchens in Asian countries, researching and recording relevant cases worldwide, and maintaining contact and cooperation with local governments with relative policies. Relevant information will be disseminated through the website shortly together, and a promotion committee will be established with Japan and South Korea so that the implementation capacity and results can be more significant, making ACPP the world’s first global hub for research and promotion of public organic meals!
More Information:
Agriculture Department Chia-Wen Huang / Chief, Forestry Section Tel: 2960-3456 * 3105 Mobile: 0921-073-005
Chief, Forestry Section Ying-Wei Huang / Press Contact Tel: 2960-3456 * 3020 Mobile: 0972-081-369