Are the vegetables you eat laced with pesticide?

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday expressed concern over a report that said pesticide residues were found to be ‘beyond permissible limits’ in vegetables and edible items sold across the country.

A division bench of Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, taking note of a report filed by amicus curiae Sanjay Jain, issued notice to the central and city governments on the issue.

It sought response from the department of agriculture and cooperation, department of agriculture research and education, department of chemicals and petrochemicals, department of biotechnology, ministry of environment and forests, food safety and standards authority, and department of food safety.

The court will hear the case on March 5.

It said high content of pesticides in vegetables and fruits required a ‘pan-India’ concerted effort.

Jain submitted a report and said pesticides are used in a ‘growing number of vegetables which have the potential to cause serious neurological problem, kidney damage, skin diseases, cancer and other diseases’. (Read: ‘Test packaged food for pesticides’ says CSE)

Going through the report, the court said: ‘India is not a country to allow such type of chemicals to be used in vegetables and fruits. The central government has to make the effort. It has to be pan-India effort.’

Jain told the bench that the issue required efforts from all stakeholders, including various government departments.

Appearing for the Delhi government, advocate Zubeda Begum told the court that the Delhi Agriculture Marketing Board found ‘no pesticides residues beyond permissible limit’ on 1,134 samples reviewed in a year, from January 2013 to January 2014.

The samples collected and tested by the government were very small and did not reflect the actual ground figures, said the amicus curiae, who was assisting the court in the matter.

He further said there was no effective public campaign to educate the farmers, despite the fact that ignorance of farmers was the fountainhead of the pesticide problem. (Read: Pesticides could be harming your unborn child)

The high court had earlier taken suo motu cognizance on an NGO report that said the amount of pesticides used by farmers in India was as much as 750 times higher than European standards.

Harmful effects of pesticide

Dr Rashmi Sanghi, who has done a lot of research in this field, found that the pesticide levels in breast milk samples were 400-800% higher than allowed levels. The show then visited a district in Kerala called Kasargod which had been sprayed with 22 lakh tonnes of endosulphan between 1976 and 2000.

Dr Mohan Kumar recounted his tale of working in Kasargod. He noticed that an abnormally large number of people suffered from chronic illnesses from a long time. He said that about 5000 people must have been affected. Children suffered from grievous malformations, cancers, deformities, etc. He said that since the spraying stopped the number of cases have gone down.

The show then visited various areas in the country to show how rampant the use of pesticides. Farmers actually refused to eat their own yields and would grow separate crops for themselves.

Kavitha Kurugganti of the Alliance for Sustainable Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) said that the blame didn’t lie with farmers alone but the policy-makers. She said that 67 pesticides that were banned in other countries that were still used in India. She said that the pesticides sprayed only 1% reaches its intended target and the rest 99% remains the environment.

Dr S G Kabra pointed out that pesticides caused the destruction of folic acid especially during pregnancy leads to stunted growth, mental diseases, etc. in unborn children.

The talk then turned to the Green Revolution. Would the revolution have been possible without pesticides? Dr Vandana Shiva believed that the because of the pesticides, India has to import more crops because they ruin the symbiotic relationship between the soil and plants.