Tension as FCI staff prevent officials from entering godown

A raid by Food Safety officials at the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown at Valiathura here on Thursday witnessed unruly scenes when FCI employees and loading workers refused to let the officials in. The raid could be conducted only after the Valiathura police intervened.

Both the Food Safety Department and the police booked cases in connection with the incident and samples were collected from the godown with the help of the police.

The cases were registered on charges of obstructing officials from discharging their duties and under Section 62 of the Food Safety and Standards Act.

The raid was part of a State-wide drive, triggered by ‘widespread’ complaints over the quality of foodgrain supplied through the Public Distribution System of the State. Ration shops, Maveli stores, Labham supermarkets, Nanma supermarkets, Consumerfed stores, and FCI godowns were inspected by special squads led by the respective District Food Safety Officer as part of the drive in all 14 districts, an official release issued here said.

On Thursday, 35 samples were collected from 46 ration shops, and 41 Maveli, Nanma, and Labham outlets.

The samples will be sent for analysis.

Punitive action as per relevant sections of the Food Safety and Standards Act will be taken wherever necessary, the release said.

The raids, according to Food Safety Commissioner Biju Prabhakar, will continue and the focus will be on whether the foodgrain and items sold in these outlets are stored in a proper manner and in hygienic conditions.

Maggots in ice-creams

Following reports that maggots were found in ice-creams sold in roadside stalls here, the students’ wing of the Committee on Inner Line Permit System, and some journalists, visited three ice-cream factories on Wednesday. They found contaminated water in one factory and lack of food safety in another. In the third, ice was also being used for cold storage of fish. Sources said roadside factories with no licence would be closed down and sale of these products by hawkers banned with immediate effect. —Iboyaima Laithangbam

Smartphone cradle, app detect toxins, bacteria in food

Afraid there may be peanuts or other allergens hiding in that cookie? Thanks to a cradle and app that turn your smartphone into a handheld biosensor, you may soon be able to run on-the-spot tests for food safety, environmental toxins, medical diagnostics and more.

The handheld biosensor was developed by researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A series of lenses and filters in the cradle mirror those found in larger, more expensive laboratory devices. Together, the cradle and app transform a smartphone into a tool that can detect toxins and bacteria, spot water contamination and identify allergens in food.

Kenny Long, a graduate researcher at the university, says the team was able to make the smartphone even smarter with modifications to the cellphone camera.

Key points in the genetically modified food debate

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to securing a massive free trade agreement between the United States and Europe is a sharp disagreement on genetically modified foods.

Much of the corn, soybean, sugar beets and cotton cultivated in the United States today contains plants whose DNA was manipulated in labs to resist disease and drought, ward off insects and boost the food supply. Though common in the U.S., they are largely banned in the 28-nation European Union.

Washington wants Europe to ease restrictions on imports of these foods, commonly known as GMOs for genetically modified organisms, but the EU is skeptical they are safe. Intense emotions on both sides of the divide make it difficult to separate between strongly held belief and science.

A look at key points in the debate:

SAFE OR UNSAFE?

Most studies show genetically modified foods are safe for human consumption, though it is widely acknowledged that the long-term health effects are unknown. The Food and Drug Administration generally recognized these foods as safe, and the World Health Organization has said no ill health effects have resulted on the international market.

Opponents on both sides of the Atlantic say there has been inadequate testing and regulation. They worry that people who eat genetically modified foods may be more prone to allergies or diseases resistant to antibiotics. But they have been hard pressed to show scientific studies to back up those fears.
GM foods have been a mainstay in the U.S. for more than a decade. Most of the crops are used for animal feed or in common processed foods such as cookies, cereal, potato chips and salad dressing.
Europe largely bans genetically engineered foods and has strict requirements on labeling them. They do allow the import of a number of GM crops such as soy, mostly for animal feed, and individual European countries have opted to plant these types of crops. Genetically engineered corn is grown in Spain, though it amounts to only a fraction of European farmland.
The American Medical Association favors mandatory, pre-market safety testing, something that has not been required by U.S. regulators. The WHO and the U.N. food agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, say the safety of genetically modified foods must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
CAN GM FOOD HELP COMBAT WORLD HUNGER?
By 2050, the world's population is projected to rise to 9 billion from just over 7 billion currently. Proponents of genetically modified foods say they are safe and can boost harvests even in bad conditions by protecting against pests, weeds and drought. This, they argue, will be essential to meeting the needs of a booming population in decades to come and avoiding starvation.
However Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist for the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, said genetic engineering for insect resistance has provided only a modest increase in yields since the 1990s and drought-resistant strains have only modestly reduced losses from drought.
Moreover, he said conventional crossbreeding or cross-pollinating of different varieties for desirable traits, along with improved farming, are getting better results boosting yields at a lower cost. In fact, much of the food Americans eat has been genetically modified by those conventional methods over thousands of years, before genetic engineering came into practice.
"Overall, genetic engineering does not get nearly the bang for the buck as conventional breeding" and improved agricultural practices, Gurian-Sherman said. His organization advises caution on GM foods and favors labeling, though it acknowledges the risks of genetic engineering have sometimes been exaggerated.
Andrea Roberto Sonnino, chief of research at the U.N. food agency, said total food production at present is enough to feed the entire global population. The problem is uneven distribution, leaving 870 million suffering from hunger. He said world food production will need to increase by 60 percent to meet the demands of 9 billion by 2050. This must be achieved by increasing yields, he added, because there is little room to expand cultivated land used for agriculture.
Genetically modified foods, in some instances, can help if the individual product has been assessed as safe, he said. "It's an opportunity that we cannot just miss."
TO LABEL OR NOT TO LABEL?
Europe requires all GM food to be labeled unless GM ingredients amount to 0.9 percent or less of the total. The U.S. does not require labels on the view that genetically modified food is not materially different than non-modified food. Opponents of labeling say it would scare consumers away from safe foods, giving the appearance that there is something wrong with them.
U.S. activists insist consumers should have the right to choose whether to eat genetically modified foods and that labeling would offer them that choice, whether the foods are safe or not. They are pushing for labeling at the state and federal level. California voters last year rejected a ballot initiative that would have required GM food labeling. The legislatures of Connecticut and Maine have passed laws to label genetically modified foods, and more than 20 other states are contemplating labeling.
COULD GM FOOD TORPEDO THE TRADE DEAL?
Absolutely. The U.S is pressing for the restrictions on importing genetically modified food to be eased but there is no sign that the EU's firm opposition is softening. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said recently that Europe will defend its restrictions in the trade negotiations, which began last month. Some in the U.S. see the European resistance as just another form of protectionism that promotes domestic products over imported ones.
GM foods are not the only seemingly intractable issue standing in the way of a comprehensive free trade agreement to remove most tariffs and other trade barriers, aiming to boost jobs and growth. Genetically modified foods are part of a broader set of restrictions on both sides related to agriculture and food safety. There are also significant differences on intellectual property and financial regulations, among other thorny issues.

Put hygiene, safety on the menu

The death of 23 children in Bihar after eating food served as part of the mid-day meal scheme is a very sad event. Forensic investigations at two independent laboratories have found monocrotophos, a lethal pesticide, in very large concentration in the oil that was used. The cook and children, it is reported, had protested to the teacher but she had paid no heed. She did not taste the cooked food — a mandatory government instruction — before serving it to the children.

The incident has raised many questions about the mid-day meal (MDM). It was introduced in schools on the orders of the Supreme Court in 2004. The intent was to ensure that children do not stay hungry at school, that their school attendance improved, and that their overall state of nutrition also improved. Social cohesion and breakdown of caste hierarchies was also an indirect benefit of the scheme. Evaluation studies indicate that the MDM has succeeded on these counts in many schools, the limitations of quality and hygiene notwithstanding.

The current programme is a partnership between the Centre and the states. Foodgrains come from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) through the state food corporations and are delivered at schools by transport contractors. The school management committees are provided R3.37 per day per Class I – V child and R5 per day per child in Classes VI-VIII, to meet the conversion costs that include the purchase of pulses, vegetables, oil, cooking fuel, etc.

 Cooks engaged for every 100 children are paid R1,000 a month for 10 months of the year. Kitchen sheds were sanctioned. Utensils, etc, are provided as part of the scheme and there is a provision for replacement every five years. Overall, the programme is minimalist with the resource provision inadequate to maintain high quality and standards, especially in schools with low enrolment. Since resources for management are inadequate for setting up a separate structure like in Tamil Nadu, most states take the assistance of school headmasters as members of the school committee for the management of the scheme. They too have been protesting about having to do non-academic work.

Many schools still manage to serve a decent meal, especially where the school has good infrastructure, student strength is high, and members of the school management committee are active. There are, however, complaints about the purchase of goods and instances of over-reporting in schools. There are also complaints about the quality of foodgrains that the FCI issues and what finally reaches the schools.

The problem is worse in new schools that have opened in compliance with the Right to Education norm of a school within one kilometre. Many of them still do not have land or a building of their own, leave aside a kitchen shed. Financing, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), has not been of an order that all infrastructure gaps can be bridged, especially in states with a large infrastructure deficit. Tagging to an existing nearby school is the only temporary option.

What is the solution? Akshya Patra-like large kitchens that are hygienic cannot cover over a million villages in the country. The school-level infrastructure, including water, sanitation, cleanliness through untied grants, will need to be augmented on a war-footing and the norms for conversion costs, honoraria of cooks, construction of kitchen sheds, utensils, seating arrangements for children, hiring of professional nutritionists, food inspectors, managers, etc, will have to be provided at market comparable rates. The cooked food must be tasted by the cook, the teacher and a parent before it is given to the children.

To improve accountability, school management committees need to be strengthened and ways to set up a dedicated management structure for better cooked food will have to be evolved. We cannot afford minimalist provisions that help in complying with the law only in form and not spirit. A more substantive compliance requires the willingness of the State to provide the resources needed to augment school infrastructure and ensure quality and hygiene in the mid-day meal scheme. A community accountability framework seems to be the most useful and investments to build this are needed.

Privatisation is no solution. Though the task of serving quality cooked meals is a daunting one, it is worth the effort, given its impact on enrolment, attendance, hunger, and social harmony.

Ban under FSS Act - Paan, gutkha, scented supari traders observe bandh

All paan, gutkha and scented supari stalls and shops in Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Mira-Bhayander observed bandh on Thursday in protest against the ban on smokeless products imposed by Maharashtra government on July 19, 2013.
Further, these traders held demonstrations at Null Bazar against the ban. The traders fear that the ban, which came into effect under the FSS Act, 2006, on July 20, 2013, would be valid for one year and get further extension at the end of the year.
Speaking to FnB News, Laxmi Chaurasia, member of Paan Tambaku Vyapari Sangh, said, “We are observing one-day token bandh in order to put forward our demand to the government about giving some relaxation in the rules and regulations set for banning smokeless products. They should provide us with guidelines. If they totally ban this product more than 5 crore people who are directly and indirectly associated with this business will become jobless.”

He added, “Around 40,000 paan shops all over Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Mira-Bhayandar shut there shops today in order to support the protest. If government did not consider our demands we can go on indefinite strike in the future. It’s the question of the survival of crores of people who are associated with the business.”