TWO pieces of research, one on fruit and the other on vegetables, have found the presence of harmful heavy metals such as lead, chromium and cadmium and pesticide residue in the produces that could expose humans to significant health risks, including cancer. The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute has carried out the research on fruit and the Bangladesh Agricultural University which has carried out the research on vegetables have presented their findings at a seminar that the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority has organised in Dhaka. The Agricultural Research Institute has examined 320 samples of mango, litchi, Indian plum and guava collected in Dhaka, Rajshahi, Pabna and Bogura. The research has found pesticide residue in 12.19 per cent of the samples, with the highest in litchi, 18.89 per cent, and the lowest in mango, 8.8 per cent. Pesticide residue is found to have been beyond the maximum limit in 30 of the samples. The Bangladesh Agricultural University has found heavy metals in samples of nine types 鈥� including aubergine, beans, cucumber, okra, pointed gourd and red spinach 鈥� collected in six districts of Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions. Red spinach is found to have contained 704.32 micrograms of cadmium a kilogram, far above the permissible limit of 190 micrograms. A high presence of cadmium is also found in aubergine, cucumber and tomato.
Such a situation warrants strict oversight on agricultural production, implementation of good agricultural practices and enhanced public awareness as researchers say that long-term consumption of contaminated vegetables with heavy metals and fruit contaminated with high pesticide residue could entail significant health risks, including cancer. What remains the prime problem, or the biggest challenge, is that this is not the first time research have come up with such findings, detailing dangers in food. Such findings have made the headlines off and on for years now, but there have been no sincere efforts on part of the government to attend to the issues and ensure food safety. The Food Safety Authority came into being in February 2015 by way of the Food Safety Act 2013. It has almost been a decade, but without any tangible impact on the food safety situation. The web site of the Food Safety Authority lists public agencies of 23 types that are directly or indirectly responsible for food safety. But, with such a strong network, research still finding food contaminated with heavy metals and pesticide residue suggests a complete government failure in ensuring safe food for citizens. Promises of action and rhetorical statements have all along marked any government initiatives for food safety and safe food. Only the citizens come to have been gravely affected by government indolence, further adding to the burden of health expenditures of the people who fall ill from the consumption of contaminated food and of the government.
It is already time that the government and its agencies abandoned their rhetorical stance about food safety and ensured safe food for the citizens.
