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Journalism of Courage
Over 800 cases have emerged of agricultural products and processed foods shipped from India being rejected in the last five years. The majority of such cases have been reported from the member states of the European Union (EU).
In addition,many countries have imposed restrictions on Indian peanuts,rice,poultry products,curry leaves,okra,groundnuts,cassia seeds for different reasons.
The Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has provided this information in response to an application filed by The Indian Express under the Right To Information Act.
The response says that EU has issued 763 notifications under Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) since 2008 and most of them were for rejecting the consignments.
The remaining rejections,complaints and restrictions were received from Taiwan,Japan,China,Indonesia,Malaysia,Thailand,Korea and United Arab Emirates (UAE) during same period.
Further,some countries have also imposed temporary bans on various products as well. The APEDA says that Russia has recently imposed temporary restriction on Indian peanut and rice; Kuwait,UAE,Qatar,Oman,Iraq,Bangladesh,Nepal,Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia has banned import of poultry products due to bird flu; and curry leaves have been banned in the UAE since June 2010.
On the Russian action,a World Trade Organization notification dated February 22,2013,explains the reason as: The detection of repeated cases of the Capra beetle a pest of quarantine concern for the Russian Federation,which is absent in the territory of Russia; and due to the absence of emergency actions from the competent authorities in India. Japan returned some consignments of Cassia seeds last year as positive Aflatoxin was detected. As it might stick and be harmful for human body,it has been considered to be in violation of food sanitation law.
The rejections list seems longer than the information provided by APEDA. The EU maintains such data online their website says there were more than 2,071 notifications issued about the consignments of Indian agricultural and food products since 2002 and over 1,000 of them were for rejection of the consignments for reasons mostly related to their quality.
While APEDA is mandated for fixing of standards and specifications for the scheduled products for the purpose of exports among other things,a senior official in APEDA said,We maintain the data of only those cases which are reported to us.
Cases of rejection have surfaced this year too. On March 21,UK rejected a consignment of red chilli powder since it contained Aflatoxins. On January 3,Germany rejected one consignment for unsuitable organoleptic characteristics of frozen cooked shrimps. On January 10,Italy rejected one consignment of basmati rice. Several consignments of ground nuts were rejected by EU members as they contained Aflatoxins.
India too,has rejected several consignments of imported food. There is however,a lack of awareness of their quality,said K Chandramouli,chairman,Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI),adding that the authority is working on an online database.
