New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) Innovation in the agriculture sector should not come at the cost of lowering safety standards for consumers, a senior official of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said on Friday.
FSSAI Director Sweety Behera said agricultural innovation must look beyond crop yields alone and factor in sustainability and consumer safety.
“Innovation is always good, innovation should always be there, and regulation and innovation should go together. It should not be looked at as if both of them are competing with each other,” she said.
Behera said pesticide residue limits in agricultural crops and food products must be backed by scientific evidence, risk-based approaches and surveillance.
“Innovation should not be considered
as a way to bring down the safety aspect of a food product,” she said, adding that innovation should instead aim to raise the bar of safety for consumers.
She said the focus should be on finding ways to detect new or emerging contaminants and residues in crops after use, rather than allowing safety standards to slip.
“As science is very dynamic, the regulatory challenge is also there; we also need to be dynamic to adapt, understand and come up with residue limits,” she added.
Behera was speaking at a panel discussion organised by the Agro Chem Federation of India (ACFI) on the sidelines of its 9th Annual General Meeting.
The session was also addressed by ACFI Chairman Rahul Dhanuka; Vishal Choudhary, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India; Kavya Dashora, Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; Rajvir Singh Rathi from Bayer CropScience; and Pushplata Singh, Director and Senior Fellow, Centre for Nano Research & Agricultural Biotechnology. PTI LUX BAL BAL
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