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Documentary︱57’30”︱2014︱Taiwan︱HD︱NTSC︱Color︱English Subtitles

2014, Finalist, Documentaries, Taipei Film Awards, 16th Taipei Film Festival, Taiwan

2014, Finalist, Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, Taiwan

2014, First Runner-Up, Chinese Documentary Film Festival, Hong Kong

A survey of domestic media reporting found that “fake”, “black” (illicit), and “toxic” were the 3 words most commonly associated with Taiwan in 2013. The further inclusion of “food” and “safety” among the top-10 highlights the rising tide of food safety problems that now casts an alarming pall over the safety of national food supplies. Consumers are justifiably concerned that their strawberry-flavored milk may not contain any natural flavor and that their neighborhood chicken nugget vendor is frying food using recycled oil.

With public attention now focused on the safety of grocery items such as milk, pudding, and cream puffs, how much thought is being given to rice, the cornerstone starch in the Taiwanese diet?

In the 1970s, export-oriented economic growth policies endorsed the rapid expansion of industrial production across the country. However, the industrial foundations of the Taiwan economic “miracle” were built on land-use and environmental-protection policies that were far from clear. Some factories set up on agricultural land. Their wastewater polluted irrigation networks and contaminated fields. Compromised water supplies tainted soils, which grew rice with measurably dangerous levels of cadmium, chromium and toxic chemicals that then entered the national diet. Can the threat to agricultural fields be a problem only for Taiwan’s farmers? Can we who live and rely on our island’s food, water and environment ever again feel truly safe?

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About Public Television Service Foundation

Founded in 1998, Public Television Service (PTS) is the leading public service broadcaster in Taiwan. Operated as an independent public organization, PTS aims to provide value-added quality programming services covering a wide range of categories to present the diversity and creativity in Taiwan without the intervention of commercial and political power.