Context
Recently the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has advised states to set up an inter-ministerial committee to focus on reducing pesticide use and growing strategies to modify pesticide on the farmer level.
About
- Benefits of Pesticides
- Increased Crop Yields: By controlling pests that damage crops, insecticides assist farmers achieve better yields and more reliable harvests.
- Economic Efficiency: Pesticides reduce crop losses, which in turn lowers food costs and will increase the profitability of farming.
- Disease Prevention: Some insecticides control vectors like mosquitoes, which are responsible for spreading diseases along with malaria and dengue fever.
- Weed Control: Herbicides, a form of pesticide, effectively control weed populations that compete with plants for nutrients and water.
- Issues
- Ecological Impact: Pesticides can damage non-target species, together with beneficial insects like bees, butterflies, and predatory bugs that help manage pest populations certainly.
- Soil Health: Prolonged use of insecticides can degrade soil health by killing microorganisms crucial for soil fertility.
- Water Contamination: Pesticides can leach into groundwater or runoff into surface water bodies, inflicting infection.
- Human Health Risks: Pesticides, while used excessively or inappropriately, can leave dangerous residues in food products, posing massive health risks to customers.
- These dangers consist of acute poisoning, endocrine disruption, and long-time period results such as maximum cancers and neurological disorders
Governments Steps
- Food Safety on Wheels: The FSSAI’s emphasis on regulating pesticide use aligns with international requirements to reduce these risks and promote public health.
- The FSSAI has highlighted the want to identify key places inside states in which mobile labs, referred to as “Food Safety on Wheels,”were deployed.
- These cellular labs will play an essential function in raising client consciousness and disseminating critical data about food safety practices.
- Maximum Residue limit (MRLs) of pesticides : MRLs of pesticides are constant in a different way for special food commodities based on their risk assessments.
- Insecticide Act, 1968 : Pesticides are regulated by the Ministry of Agriculture by the Central Insecticide Board and Registration Committee (CIB & RC) constituted under the Insecticide Act, 1968.
- The CIB & RC alter the producing, import, transport, storage of insecticides and for this reason the insecticides are registered/ banned/constrained by CIB & RC.
- The Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) improved the maximum residue limit (MRL) of pesticides in herbs and spices from 0.01 milligrammes per kilogramme (mg / kg) to 0.1 mg / kg.
- MRLs fixed by CODEX for spices and culinary herbs range from 0.1 to 80 g/kg.
- FSSAI aligns with the up to date standards of MRLs set by Codex Alimentarius Commission (an International Food Safety and Quality Standard setting frame created through WHO and FAO of UN) and the European Union.
- Anupam Verma Committee: It was constituted by the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare to study 66 insecticides that are banned/limited in different nations but continue to be registered to be used in India.
- Organic farming: Organic farming avoids the usage of pesticides which ends up in food products that are free from harmful chemical residues with higher tiers of essential nutrients.
- The authorities are promoting use of biopesticides, which are usually safer than chemical insecticides.
- FSSAI has additionally asked State Food Safety Commissioners to undertake an awareness campaign on pesticides/insecticides residues in fruits and vegetables.
Conclusion and Way Forward
- Pesticides remain a vital tool in modern agriculture, contributing to food security and monetary balance.
- However, their use must be cautiously controlled to stabilize agricultural productivity with environmental sustainability and human health.
Source: PIB