Pesky pesticides

Not many may have read about the hundreds of Acts directly or indirectly related to administration, ostensibly to provide flawless governance of the land ensuring welfare of all sections of the country’s steadily expanding population, lately reported to be on the cusp of 140 crore. Number of even the literate or those who are expected to be familiar, let alone be conversant with the nuances of administration focused upon the multitude of Acts may very well be an infinitesimal fraction of the country’s total headcount. One such Act, which must be in the armoury of the cognoscenti, including the honourable practitioners of law stands out, namely Food Safety and Standards Act 2006. As in cases of virtually all Acts of the nation, this one also is entrusted to a body of officials for implementing the measures which are in the nature of their rules and regulations, not to forget the punitive steps in case of violating those provisions. We are talking of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) formed in August 2011, an autonomous body established under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

FSSAI is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety. The body with its headquarters in New Delhi also has six regional offices, not one in Karnataka. The fact that the Authority has 72 State/ Union Territory laboratories located throughout India and 112 laboratories are NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) accredited private laboratories should give a feeling to the nation’s millions that all is well with the food they consume. But, reality?

To pass adverse comments on the efficiency of FSSAI’s working and the extent to which the body has protected the safe norms applicable to food doesn’t require knowledge of rocket science. Given the economic, ethnic, educational, social and beliefs diversity of the land’s diaspora, one may have to prepare a virtual encyclopaedia of rules and regulations to guide the Authority in its functioning. While India’s food basket has its components, as diverse as they are, treated in trading circles as commodity for profiteering, concern about its safety for the consuming public takes a back seat. Loss of food’s safety factor begins in a big way on the fields, ahead of their moving to the storage stage and thereafter the foods lost both quantitatively and qualitatively is anybody’s guess. Taking care of the food stock seems to be everybody’s responsibility but nobody’s duty.

In the backdrop of the foregoing preamble, the front page headline “Farmers, consumers and ecology fall prey to pesticides” succinctly portrays the total dependence on pesticide chemicals to protect food safety and the utter helplessness of FSSAI in ensuring safe food to all in the nation. The choice is between pests devouring food raised for human consumption and pesky pesticides that are a necessary evil.