The Agriculture and Food Traceability System in Taiwan:from the perspective of Risk Society Theory

• Main Authors: Hsuan-Yu Hsu, 余宣佑
• Other Authors: Kuei-Tien Chou
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/52379491749277171138

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國家發展研究所 === 97 === The recent incidence of food safety has had a great impact on the consumers’ confidence towards the agricultural products. Due to the imperfective Agriculture and Food Traceability System (TAFT) in Taiwan, it is difficult to track down the origin of the agricultural products. The purpose of the present study is to reveal the problems of TAFT and current policies on food safety in Taiwan. I analyzed several cases that revealed the problems of food safety in Taiwan based on the framework of Social Risk Theory, and conducted interviews regarding these cases with consumers, individual farmers, and administrators. The results indicate that the application of high technology in food production has raised the uncertainty level of food safety. Hence, it is essential to strengthen the risk management and communication methods in the production process. In addition, TAFT has been implemented in developed countries for many years, so, an imperfective TAFT system will be an obstacle for exporting our agricultural products to these countries. Furthermore, the interviews revealed that the implementation of TAFT will definitely raise the consumers’ confidence level towards agricultural products. Moreover, it will facilitate the progress of the agricultural industry in Taiwan. Therefore, I suggest that we should employ TAFT to agricultural goods with limited or small quantity of production first. Once a complete system has been set up, we will be able to expand such system to goods with large production. This will prevent further raise in food price and it will solve current problems in the structure of the agricultural industry (e.g. the involvement of younger generation in the industry, the conjunction of farming fields…etc.) as well.