The proverb – let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food – has faded into oblivion from our local perspective, but not so from international context. Whether or not our responsible authorities take the food safety issue into serious consideration, countries where Bangladesh’s food items are exported to pay utmost attention to screen them, considering public health before granting entry. A cursory inspection of exportable foods by the Export Promotion Bureau and the Department of Agricultural Extension has resulted in repeated point-blank refusal of entry by the destination countries causing a huge financial loss to exporters and tarnishing the image of Bangladesh. The exporters cannot come clean by just laying blame on the EPB and the DAE, they should be similarly held accountable as they are often found not maintaining hygiene standard.
When food exported from Bangladesh to overseas countries by some local brands often get intercepted and destroyed at international airports due to presence of poisonous and deleterious substances, the hygiene standard of those food manufacturers is open to question. Such interception brings shame and causes waste of resources, apart from raising suspicion about future export of food products from Bangladesh to those markets.
As per the official data released by the destination countries and Bangladesh, from September 2020 to September this year food from Bangladesh was not granted entry 210 times by countries such as the USA and England due to microbial, chemical and heavy metal presence in them.
With no screening capacity, the Export Promotion Bureau and the Department of Agricultural Extension often gave the go-ahead to food exporters, but over the past two years they failed to get their products through minute inspection at the port of entry of the destination countries, and got outright rejections.
The government recently entrusted the task of issuing food health certificate to exporters to the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority, which is, however, operating without a laboratory for over seven and a half years since its inception. The BFSA is now busy finding laboratories for carrying out tests. Now is the time to see how the organization fares and whether it can save our face as food exporter.
When foot items of local brands like Square, Pran, Gemini Seafood, Ifad and Banaful are refused entry at overseas airports for failing to meet standard, it is understandable how we the consumers are either being forced or out of our sheer respect to the well-known domestic food producers considering them as benchmark for safe food production and facing health hazards in silence as their food items are marketed inside Bangladesh almost unregulated and unchecked.
Recently, the Swedish media ran report on adulterated rice and puffed rice exported by Square to Sweden, prompting the Bangladesh Embassy in there to cable the home ministry for taking necessary action.
Many importing countries such as Taiwan, Pakistan, Middle East and Saudi Arabia are exerting pressure on exporters to produce a credible food health certificate about the items of food being exported.
From September 2020 the US Food and Drug Administration made 179 rejections of food items and refused entry, causing a huge financial loss. During the period, Square food was refused entry 18 times while Pran 12 times and Gemini Seafood Ltd 10 times, thereby calling into question their standards despite their lucrative adverts on television and other media.
According to the website of the US FDA, Pran faced the latest entry refusal on September 2 for lead adulteration in pineapple, juice, milk, crème, drink or nectar and sub-tropical fruit. On June 1, a similar rejection was issued against party crackers manufactured by Pran for containing Salmonella that the US considers poisonous and deleterious.
The US Food and Drug Administration on Jan 11 rejected shrimp and prawns produced by Gemini Seafood Ltd for containing banned antibiotic nitrofuran.
Alongside the US, the European Union intercepted food items from Bangladesh 31 times between July 2021 and October 2022 because of their being substandard, according to the quarantine wing of the Department of Agriculture Extension.
The irony being that products like tamarind, jam, jelly, marmalade and butter that were rejected entry for containing harmful substance sell like hot cakes in local market and consumers have them without understanding their harmful effect.
Actually, contaminated food does not look or smell bad. Consumers repose their trust in the manufacturers who cash in on the absence of proper inspection.
Food inspectors can protect public health by making sure that manufacturers maintain hygiene standard from production to delivery to the consumers.
According to independent and government research, agricultural inputs and veterinary drugs are excessively used in foods, and long exposure to chemicals and heavy metal cause kidney and liver damage.
The health directorate data shows that around 16 per cent of Bangladesh population suffers from kidney diseases, the number of which is increasing day by day.
The mushrooming private clinics in every nook and corner in suburbs and cities point to the fact that consumption of unhygienic food is hitting public health hard.
When it comes to financial loss due to adulterated food, the amount is very hard to measure as there is no concrete data on it. Alongside big companies, individuals also export foods to overseas markets and end up in getting dumped after failing to pass test.
On the other hand, it is also somewhat difficult to produce completely safe food in our context when soil, water and air are getting highly toxic due to pollution and when there is an absence of proper waste management.
However, it is not like moving mountain that safe food cannot be produced eradicating environmental pollution. It is imperative that the authorities concerned give a second thought to this burning issue and get tougher on food manufacturers issuing strong directives about following hygiene standard as well as taking severe punitive actions against food makers that defaulted on neglecting food safety guidelines.
Should this be done, there will be a paradigm shift of our food production practice that will save public health, enhance export and bring more forex.
Subrata Kumar Roy is a senior sub-editor of the New Age newspaper.
