Even as the Crop Care Federation of India has questioned the Kerala government’s “unfounded allegation” of high doses of pesticide residues in vegetables brought from Tamil Nadu into the State, the State government has decided to call a meeting of southern States on the issue.
A meeting of the food safety officials from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will be held on July 21.
Being a consumer State, Kerala sources most of its rice, vegetables, fruits, chicken, eggs, beef and a whole lot of food items from these States.
However, at a news conference in Chennai on Tuesday, the Crop Care Federation of India, a pesticide manufacturers’ club, questioned the Kerala government’s claim and cautioned it against making unfounded allegations against Tamil Nadu farmers.
The federation claimed that scientific data did not support the allegation that vegetables from Tamil Nadu contained high pesticide residues. The federation has also threatened Kerala Agricultural University with legal action.
Over the past couple of years, the consumers in Kerala, who often pay up to six times more for Tamil Nadu vegetables and fruits, have been worried about the chemical contamination of food stuff. Vegetables and fruits have been found sprayed with harmful chemicals for increasing shelf life; chicken was found to have been fed with harmful foodstuff to increase weight; and food safety officials have seized several samples of fish injected with chemicals that are used for preserving dead bodies in hospital mortuaries.
The State government has in the past urged authorities in Tamil Nadu and other southern States to take steps to check the chemical contamination in the food stuff sent to Kerala.
Malayalam TV channels and newspapers have carried scary ‘poison in the plate’ live reports from Tamil Nadu fields. Some of these showed spraying of the banned endosulfan pesticide on vegetable crops. (Endosulfan, because of its cruel toll on children’s health in Kasaragod district over the past quarter century, is a dirty word in Kerala).
Kitchen gardens However, the ‘pesticide-laden Tamil Nadu vegetables and fruits’ has increased awareness on organic farming and given a big boost to raising one’s own vegetables, even in the cities.
Major newspapers such as the Malayala Manorama devote space to promoting vegetable farming. The gtate Government has launched several initiatives of ‘grow your own vegetables.’
The ‘grow bag’ scheme of the Agriculture Department has proved to be a success. Kitchen gardens that provide essential vegetables are becoming increasingly common. Raising vegetables on the terraces of homes is now trending across Kerala.