THRISSUR: Organic in name alone! Well, this is what the tests on so-called organic vegetables -conducted at the Pesticide Residue Analytical Laboratory (PRAL) of Kerala Agriculture University at the College of Agriculture at Vellayani in Thiruvananthapuram - which detected traces of banned chemicals, have revealed. However, no pesticide residue was found in the fruits which were also tested at the KAU lab.
The vegetable samples subjected to the analysis were collected during January- June 2018. However, the samples collected from eco-shops didn’t have residues of chemicals. A total of 553 samples, including fruits, vegetables and spices, collected from Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Kannur and Kozhikode districts were tested in the state-of-the-art laboratory. Of the tested samples, 5.4 per cent of vegetables was found to have pesticide residues. Toxic chemicals were detected in 11.2 per cent of the vegetables labelled as ‘organic’ .
In beetroot, chilly, coriander leaves, curry leaves and mint leaves, residues of difenoconazole and imidachloprid, bifenthrin, chlorpyriphos and profenophos, were detected. “Most of the samples had been collected from the open market. Barring one or two, the other vegetables are not grown here usually and hence it is difficult to trace their origin and initiate corrective measures,” said an officer.
Samples of red amaranth, beans, green chilly, cucumber, snake gourd and cowpea sold with organic label were collected from organic vegetable outlets. Insecticides like lamdacyhyalothrin, quinalphos, ethion, profenophos, ethion, bifenthrin and fenopropathrin detected in these items belong to the toxic Yellow label category.
Residues of hazardous chemicals were detected in ajowan and Kashmir chilli powder as well. According to the KAU, 18 toxic pesticides had been banned in the state from 2011. Despite this, their presence was detected in the collected samples.Among spices, malathion residue was detected in a single sample of cardamom which is grown in ecologically sensitive regions of the Western Ghats.
Since the use of deadly chemicals in such zones will have an adverse fall-out on the ecosystem as well, corrective steps have to be initiated on a war footing. Adoption of Integrated Pest management (IPM) strategies should be improved among cardamom farmers as an alternative to the use of non-recommended toxic chemicals. KAU said it has already taken initiatives to conduct training programmes for cardamom farmers.
Agriculture Minister V S Sunilkumar said the department in association with KAU has begun to address the issue. “The farmers are being provided training in use of pesticides. In the case of cardamom, there is a powerful lobby of insecticide companies as they appointed people in the name of field inspectors to market their products. We put an end to it and the farmers have started realising it,” he said. According to the minister, some kind of certification is needed to rein in the private shops which sell products under the ‘organic’ label.