Speakers at a workshop said food contamination is caused by lack of awareness among farmers about using fertilizers, pesticides, and many other chemical substances in their cultivation.
They made the observation at a workshop on “Food Safety and Quality,” jointly organized by Land O’ Lakes International Development, and Bangladesh Agro Processors’ Association (Bapa), at Daffodil International University on Wednesday.
Prof Iqbal Rouf Mamun, member of Bangladesh Food Safety Authority(BFSA), said in our country, all kinds of food is contaminated with different types of materials and substances which are very harmful for our health.
“Farmers who use different fertilizers and chemicals to produce more crops, are not aware of the effects and do not follow the pre-harvest intervals (PHI) of pesticides,” he said.
“Lack of laboratory with skilled manpower is another problem to test maximum residue level (MRL) of pesticides, microbial, chemical, and physical contaminants to confirm compliance with consumer requirements,” he added.
Dr Hiresh Ranjan Bhowmik, director general of Department of Livestock Services said, food safety is a holistic issue and no single department can have any tremendous success in this sector.
“We should work collectively on this issue and motivate our farmers as well as consumers to make them aware about food contamination,” he added.
Professor Dr MA Rahim of the horticulture department of Bangladesh Agriculture University said Bangladesh has the highest number of food safety laws in the world but none are properly implemented.
“We have not seen any serious action against many companies who have been identified at different times for various deceptions and inconsistencies in their products and are still doing business normally,” he said.
Mitch Nelson, senior food safety advisor of Economic Growth Office, USAID Bangladesh, said, food safety and quality is all about food production, storing, packaging, and consumption by its consumers.
“ It is not necessary to spend more money and effort to monitor this issue: it is important to give the attention with science based knowledge to tackle food contamination. And after all, it is a joint responsibility of the private, public, and consumer sectors to do the work,” he added.
Members of various private and public food control organizations participated in the event while Maksudur Rahman, country director of Land O’ Lakes, and Bapa President, AFM Fakhrul Islam Munshi, also spoke among others.
Problems in meat and milk, as well as fruit and vegetable, contamination :
Meat and Milk
• Use of antibiotics in feed
• Lack of modern slaughtering houses
• Safe slaughtering interval
• Following improper husbandry system
Horticulture: fruits and vegetables
• insecticides
• herbicides
• fungicides
• heavy metals
Suggestions to stop the food contamination
• Coordination among all food control agencies
• Filling the gaps in existing rules and regulations
• Improving hygiene in wet markets
• Building awareness among consumers, producers and distributors
• Providing regular training to concerned workers
• Regular monitoring of food samples
• Partnering with modern research-based organizations for technical support for quality control and product development
• Practicing farm management systems, including proper milking procedures, and judicial use of pesticides
• Compliance with food safety regulations for MSMEs, process management.