Issues so far
- FSSAI has been very lackadaisical about dealing with pesticides in food
- Despite being prodded many times, they have done almost nothing about it
Dangers
- A list of 31 pesticides have been made by 25 labs across the country
- All the 31 chemicals in the list can prove to be fatal to humans on prolonged consumption
More in the story
- Ten chemicals out of the list of 31 and where they are found
- How can the government be made to pay attention
It took nearly a month for FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) to announce a ban on a carcinogen - Potassium Bromate - that was found in bread samples by a study.
But considering how FSSAI has fared otherwise, this has to be counted among its crowning achievements.
Take the case of pesticide contamination in food crops, for instance. A long pending crisis about which the regulator has been reminded by none other than Supreme Court and NHRC. Despite repeated prodding, it still remains as an issue in which the regulator has done nothing really.
Consuming pesticide-laced food, an expert talking about this issue joked, is an everyday crime of trespassing. That is if you consider your body as private property and the cache of pesticides that enter your body with food - as intruders.
On a more serious note, the expert said that government's willful ignorance of harmful pesticides being used in the fields is an everyday violation of our right to safe food or a safe food-chain.
According to government's own report, published recently, a fifth of all foods produced and sold in the country contain pesticide residues.
This data was reported by a Union agriculture ministry-sponsored nationwide network project involving 25 participating labs.
Catch has in its possession a list of 31 extremely harmful pesticides that have been almost universally banned but are being used indiscriminately in India.
To give you an idea we list 10 of those 31 pesticides here:
Phosphamidon
Used in foodgrains, milled foodgrains, fruits and vegetables.
World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified this pesticide as 'extremely hazardous', United States' Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified it as 'Category 1 (highly toxic)' and according to European Union standards it is 'very toxic' and 'dangerous to environment'.
Studies have shown exposure to this compound affects the central nervous system, producing incoordination, slurred speech, loss of reflexes, involuntary muscle contractions, eventually leading to paralysis of the body extremities and the respiratory muscles.
Over exposure to this pesticide can also cause psychosis, irregular heartbeat, unconsciousness, convulsions, respiratory failure, cardiac arrest and coma.
Monocrotophos
Used in food grains, fruits and vegetables.
On 16 July, 2013, 23 school children died in Bihar after consuming their mid-day meal that was contaminated by this chemical. Despite this tragedy this pesticide continues to be used in our fields.
Monocrotophos is classified by WHO as a 'highly hazardous' chemical. Severe exposure to this chemical is known to cause involuntary defecation or urination, psychosis, irregular heartbeat, unconsciousness, convulsions and coma.
Acephate
It is used mostly in rice and sunflower seeds. It is considered to be a fetotoxin (a chemical compound that can poison the fetus) and there is evidence of Acephate exposure causing hormonal imbalance.
Alachlor
It is used in ground nuts, maize and soyabean seeds.
Tests on lab rats have shown repeated exposure of Alachlor to cause hepato-toxicity, irreversible eye degeneration and tumor formation.
Carbaryl
Used in food grains, okra and leafy vegetables.
Tests have shown that Carbaryl affects the nervous system.
Carbofuran
Used in food grains, fruits, oil seeds, sugarcane, vegetables and tea.
Exposure to this chemical is known to cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, sweating, diarrhea, excessive salivation, weakness, imbalance, blurring of vision, breathing difficulty, increased blood pressure, and incontinence.
Consuming a large dose of Carbufuran can cause death from respiratory system failure.
Dicofol
Used in fruits, vegetables, tea, chilli and sorghum. I
Dicofol is known to be an irritant and neurotoxin to mammals and has tendency to accumulate in the body.
Ethion
Used in gram, pigeon tea, soybean seeds, tea, chilli and fruits.
The chemical is known to cause nervous disorders.
Oxydemetonmethyl
Used in chilli, mustard oil and food grains.
Exposure to this chemical is known to cause complications like excessive sweating, salivation and lachrimation, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, general weakness, headache, poor concentration and tremors.
A bigger dose of this compound can also cause death by respiratory failure.
Zineb
Used in fruits and vegetable crops.
Zineb has been proved to be harmful to the thyroid, liver and muscles.
These pesticides have not gone out of circulation despite repeated incidents of deaths caused by consumption.
In fact Supreme Court of India held FSSAI responsible for food contamination by pesticides and issued them a notice in 2013.
Two years later, in December 2014, the NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) issued a notice to them after taking cognisance of a report according to which the maximum residual levels of pesticides in fruits and vegetables had been exceeded by many times in several samples taken up for testing.
To give an instance of how flippant and selfish our law makers are in dealing with this crisis, Gopal Krishna, Director, ToxicsWatch, shares an anecdote.
"Back early 2000s when the Coca Cola and other soft drinks were shown to contain pesticide residues a Joint Parliamentary Committee was constituted to look into its effects. The result was that while no regulations were placed on the soft drink companies or on pesticide firms, the committee, horrified by the toxic levels of pesticides it found in their samples, banned soft drinks in the Parliament," Krishna shares.
All that the government has done so far, Krishna says, is to have set up committees to look into the use of pesticides.
All that the government has done to battle pesticides is set up committees
"One committee is constituted to look into the issue of food contamination by pesticides, and another committee is constituted to verify the findings of the previous committee and so it goes."
Satish Sinha, associate director at Toxics Link, says that the issue of food contamination by pesticides is "very serious" but the problem cannot be resolved quickly because India has not come up with, or publicised a list of pesticides which it considers harmful nor has it banned any of them.
"We know these chemicals are always coming up in our food. But there's no regulation of pesticides in the country. We need to find out who are producing these pesticides. Who is importing them, if they are not being produced locally and how are farmers getting their hands on them," says Sinha.
One way to have these chemicals banned in the country, Krishna proposes, is to have parliamentarians check their own blood for them. This is perhaps the only way to shake our law makers out of their slumber.
"There is a test available in the market called body burden test. The results of these test shows a person all the poisonous chemicals in their blood stream, and these chemicals can be traced back to their source. Let our parliamentarians conduct a body burden test on themselves for these 31 pesticides and we'll see how speedily they'll impose regulations for the rest of us lesser mortals," says Krishna.
In the meanwhile, a detailed set of questions have been sent to the FSSAI by Catch News on 15 June regarding these pesticides and we are currently awaiting their response,
