The Hindu Business Line : India, Lanka seek accord on pesticide residue in tea — Issue to figure at FAO meet in Rome next month

AFTER competing for years in several sections of the global markets, two of the world's major tea producers, India and Sri Lanka, will join hands against the major buying communities.

They have a single agenda. There should be a harmony in the MRL (minimum [pesticide] residual limit) standards for black tea in the all importing countries and it should not vary from one another.

The matter has already been discussed on more than one occasion and will again come up for discussion when the inter-governmental group on tea meets in Rome in December.

The inter-governmental group, a body under the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), consists of tea producing and importing nations. This is the only international global forum where people dealing with tea thrash out their differences and chart new courses.

According to Mr Basudeb Banerjee, Chairman of the Tea Board, both Sri Lankan and Indian tea producers are not bothered about the stringency of the norms but they want a standardisation of MRL.

"The MRL standards vary. Even among the European Union member countries, the limits are different. Everything is fine but for a producer who is manufacturing tea in Assam or Sri Lanka, he does not know the final destination of the tea. So, it is almost difficult to meet a particular set of MRL limits," Mr Banerjee told Business Line.

So, Indian and Sri Lankan tea boards are suggesting that there should be a harmonisation of these standards and it should be applicable everywhere in the globe, be it the EU or the US.

For this purpose, the inter-governmental group will take the help of Codex Alimentarins Commission, the body which finalises standards and prepared guidelines on all food items, keeping the health of the consumers in mind and ensuring fair trade practices. This commission was jointly created by the FAO and the World Health Organisation.

Moreover, the existing MRL limits are fixed on black tea and not its brew. Mr Banerjee said there is a need for correction because black tea is not chewed and eaten through the mouth.

"It is the infusion that everyone drinks. If necessary, black tea can be brewed for half an hour and then tested for fixing the standards," he said.

There is another aspect attached to it.

Mr Banerjee said MRL standards should be finalised after studying the effects on human beings and not just on minimum detectable limits. "Modern scientific research equipment can find out the presence of every mineral and its exact quantity. That is not important. We will have to find out what is harmful to human bodies and what isn't. That should be standard all over the globe because what will be harmful to a European will also be harmful for an Indian," said Mr Banerjee.

The EU is all set to implement a new set of MRL standards from January 1, 2006. It has also marked Indian teas in the `high residual group'.

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