Stop chemical ripening of fruits

For some years in succession fruit traders have been found engaging in a dangerous practice of spraying chemicals on fruits or even injecting the same to give fruits a premature ripe look and thus enhance their appeal to consumers. But such business motive can be fatal for those who consume fruits because the chemicals used are known to be carcinogenic for human beings and even animals. They can cause cancer and other ailments. We are in the Bengali month of Jaistha. Summer fruits are arriving in the markets. It needs ensuring that these fruits like in recent years would not be artificially ripened through the use of chemicals hazardous to human health.

A mobile court has been occasionally visiting food shops and fining unsafe food caterers and food producers of different kinds. However, their activities did not extend adequately to fruit processors and sellers and this is a serious omission on their part because hazardous ripening of fruits poses serious threats to public health. It is unthinkable that official authorities who should be concerned about the threat to public health on this score can remain indifferent to the practice or be uncaring. The news about artificial ripening of fruits through the use of hazardous chemicals should have led to a crackdown on such fruit processors and sellers by now to eliminate their potential to do harm and to create disincentives for such activities. However, it is better to be late than never. Consumers are keen for the authorities to respond in a tough manner to such hazardous and unethical behaviour on the part of fruit sellers. This expectation should be greater now with the interim government in office and taking tough action where people's interests are involved such as in the areas of protecting their health from this new but very serious threat.

The Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) is ordinarily engaged in testing all kinds of packaged consumer products to determine their standard or safety and certify those accordingly. Fruits and other kutcha items are under the jurisdiction of the district administrations, municipalities and city corporations. Clearly, they have the powers to make the distributors of fruits to open their shops for collection and testing of samples. If the municipal authorities do this in relation to a number of large fruit sellers, then, it is believed, others would get the message and take steps on their own to stop this dangerous practice out of an anticipation of facing punitive measures for doing otherwise. Therefore, the district administrations and the municipal authorities need to turn their attention to this need immediately and help protect the health of people who without any suspicion in their minds buy fruits from markets.

Source: ittefaq.com

Publication date: 6/7/2007

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