KOCHI: Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI), a non-governmental organisation in the agricultural sector, has refuted allegations that vegetables being brought in from Tamil Nadu are high on pesticides. The CCFI has challenged the claim of Kerala’s Commissioner of Food Safety who claimed recently that farmers in Tamil Nadu have been using banned pesticides to cultivate crops which were being consumed by people in Kerala.
CCFI chairman Rajju Shroff said that Kerala Government’s allegations are unfair, baseless, unfounded and made with malafide intentions.
“Such allegations are being made without any understanding of science. These allegations are provocative and are completely bereft of facts. We hold the office of Commissioner of Food Safety in Kerala under legal obligation to place the specific material evidence in support of the wild allegation that farmers in Tamil Nadu are using banned pesticides,” he said. Under the prevalent law the authorities in Kerala have no powers to curb or to seek to regulate the recommended uses of registered pesticides by the farmers in the state of Tamil Nadu. Such exercise of power should be considered ultra vires, ie, beyond the jurisdiction exercise of administrative power.
In a letter to the Commissioner of Food Safety in Kerala, the CCFI shared government data which proves that only 1.8 per cent of fruits and vegetable samples tested have shown pesticide residues above the legal limit, also known as Maximum Residue Limit (MRL). The CCFI also gave evidence in the letter to show how Kerala Government officials have a history of unlawfully banning farmer-friendly pesticides without any scientific proof.
The CCFI welcomed Food Safety Authority’s decision to regularly test agricultural commodities for pesticide residues.
But CCFI feels such tests should be conducted in a non-discriminatory manner covering both locally produced commodities and those produced outside the state of Kerala.
The protocol for the tests should be in total compliance with the latest as approved by the All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) of The Indian Agricultural Research Institute.
The test results together with the chromatograms should be made available for independent verification. The counter samples should be kept for minimum 30 days after the results are announced for challenge analysis if necessary, said S Ganesan, public and policy advisor to CCFI.
