Taiwan Today
Date: July 15, 2016

Taiwan bananas now feature in the lunch programs for the 10,000 students and teachers at the

Hsiou Dong-chong (left), deputy director-general of COA’s Department of International Affairs, and Gotemba Mayor Yohei Wakabayashi display a letter of intent signed July 12 in Taipei City on providing Taiwan bananas to schools in the Japanese city. (UDN)

six elementary and four junior high schools in the city of Gotemba in central Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture on one day each month under an agreement signed between Taiwan’s Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture and the Japanese city July 12 in Taipei.

According to COA, four other cities in Shizuoka Prefecture plan to add Taiwan bananas to their lunch programs in the near future, while the council is also in talks with related authorities in Akita, Aomori, Ishikawa and Kanagawa prefectures on similar pacts. If all the deals are sealed, COA estimates Taiwan’s total banana exports to Japan would reach about 10,000 tons per year.

When the project was implemented on a trial basis July 6, some students brought home their bananas, with one pupil writing in their diary: “Grandma shed tears at the taste of the banana, saying only sick people had the privilege of eating this kind of fruit when she was little.” The anecdote was featured in Japanese media reports about the school lunch initiative, drawing considerable local attention to the arrangement.     [FULL  STORY]