To: Mr. Pawan Kumar Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI, ceo@fssai.gov.in
Copy to: Persons listed below
Date: Friday, November 16, 2018
Subject: Glyphosate in seed crops imported from Canada, Australia
Mr. Agarwal,
I draw your attention to the report from Times of India, linked below, regarding FSSAI making a press release with assurance that pulses, beans and pea imported into India might be safe from glyphosate poisoning.
I would advise against arriving at such a hasty statement based on evidence that might deserve a lot more scrutiny.
Following items need clarification, from the newspaper report:
- Very few samples were found to contain glyphosate
- The level of glyphosate found were within limits
- Glyphosate may have been used by some countries to control weed.
I shall offer a counter point of view and suggestion on each of these points, as follows:
1) Very few samples contain glyphosate:
Countries such as Canada and Australia do not use glyphosate only for weed control. They use it to desiccate (kill and dry) crops just before harvesting. The process involves direct spraying of the crop at close distance with glyphosate, to force the crop to die and dry out, before the harvesting machine is used. This guarantees presence of and high concentration of glyphosate in harvested seeds. The level of contamination with glyphosate is usually an order of dimension higher than if the poison was used on the ground prior to planting the seeds, for weed control. That fact bears proof by CIFA’s own tests, the results of which have been published in “Poison Foods of North America”. Any crop that is desiccated with glyphosate prior harvesting cannot have no glyphosate. Therefore, if tests in India show no glyphosate in those crops, the quality of those tests are suspect.
I would also draw your attention to the fact that High pressure liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MSMS), the method usually used for high level of accuracy and repeatability for detecting glyphosate, is an exacting science and the attending lab technician needs to be highly skilled to identify the spectrogram of glyphosate among all the other signatures, separate it out and quantify it. Therefore, if the lab assistants are not sufficiently trained especially in this task, the results can be less than perfect. This method is not something where the sample is shoved inside a machine, and the lab attendant then watches his smart phone and awaits accurate results to be spewed out by the machine.
I would strongly suggest that the Government of India obtains a written guarantee from all exporting nations such as Canada and Australia, that they do not use glyphosate, or any other poison, for desiccation of the crops before harvest. I would suggest FSSAI investigates reliability of these tests and to explain how crops desiccated with glyphosate can have no presence detected. Further, these results should be disclosed to the people so that they can stand public scrutiny.
I would also recommend that you arrange for tests of the seeds grown in Canada and earmarked for shipment to India, be independently tested in certified labs in Canada and results submitted to you prior shipment.
2) Level of glyphosate were within limits:
India has not set a safe limit for glyphosate. Further, India has not approved Glyphosate for use in agriculture at all. Therefore, no glyphosate can or should be considered as “within limit”. There is a possibility that FSSAI has been coaxed to accept limits set by Codex Alimentarius, which is very high and influenced by the toxic chemical lobby, to hoodwink innocent third world countries into importing toxic foods.
I had sent an earlier email to FSSAI officials warning about this, and am copying it here for your records.
India needs to reset limits set by external entities and set its own limit by conducting tests on lab animals subjected to measured doses of glyphosate. India is more than able to carry out honest tests and set its own safety limits than be coaxed by standards set under control of the same interests that make the profit in sale of such toxic foods. Allowing Codex Alimentarius’s limits for glyphosate in seed crops is like appointing a fox to guard the hen house.
3) Glyphosate is used by some countries to control weeds
This statement is only partially true and not so relevant in this case. Glyphosate is used here as a killer poison to kill the crop itself, and not weeds, just prior to harvesting. Therefore, describing it as a weed killer is essentially passing misinformation. It is used as a crop killer, and not just weed killer.
I hope you shall pay attention to these facts and help India set very high, rather than very low, standards of food safety that is geared for keeping Indian citizens safe rather than keeping exporting nations make a profit at the expense of ill-health for people of India.
Thank you
Santanu Mitra
49/65 Prince Gulam Mohd Shah Road, Kolkata 700033, India
+91-98317 13068, tony.mitra@gmail.com
Link to TOI news article: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/pulses-beans-imported-into-india-safe-for-consumption-fssai/articleshow/66640252.cms
Copy to: Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister, food & public distribution, min-food@nic.in, ramvilas.p@sansad.nic.in Mr Sanjeev Hans, PS to Minister, psfoodmin@nic.in Mr Ashish Bahuguna, Chairperson, FSSAI, chairperson@fssai.gov.in Ms Machavi Das, CMCO, madhavi.das@nic.in Mr Kumar Anil, Advisor, advisor@fssai.gov.in Ms Rubeena Shaheen, Director, rubeena@fssai.gov.in Mr Sunil Bakshi, Advisor, sbakshi@fssai.gov.in Mr Bhaskar N, Advisor, advisor.qa@fssai.gov.in Ms Suneeti Tateja, Director, suneeti@fssai.gov.in Mr Raj Singh, Head, r.singh@nic.in
Mr. Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav, Rajya Sabha, Govt of India., Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, ramgopal.yadav@sansad.nic.in
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