Thiruvananthapuram: Though the Agriculture and farmers welfare department had plans only to have Vishukani 2017 market in time for the festive season, it has now decided to rename it Vishukani – Easter market. Deparment officials say that they have been provided with a paltry '20, 000 in each Krishi Bhavan to meet the expenses of running the two-day festival market during April 12 – 13. As part of delivering good quality organic vegetables to consumers, only those products which come under Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) will hit the festival markets. The Agriculture department aims at selling 20,175 tonnes of vegetables across the State during the two-day Vishukani – Easter market sale. But when DC got in touch with a few Krishi Bhavans in the southern districts, they informed that a majority of the vegetables would have to be procured from Tamil Nadu which cannot be guaranteed to be organic.
“Except cucumber, snakegourd and bittergourd, vegetables including onion and potato have to be procured from neighbouring States. If the Government had planned in advance on how to beat the drought, the farmers could have improved their yield”, said a Krishi Bhavan official in Thiruvananthapuram district.
The department claims that it is expecting to procure 2347 tonnes GAP certified vegetables within the State and an additional 309 tonnes are also expected directly from farmers. But Krishi Bhavan officials say these are inflated statistics because two monsoon seasons have been bad and with water scarcity affecting a majority of farmers across the State, only half of the department’s claim can be taken at face value.
“It is sad that agricultural officers are asked to organise vegetable markets when it should have been the responsibility of Consumerfed. We are compelled to do this instead of catering to the welfare needs of farmers. Will the animal husbandry department ask their veterinary doctors to sell milk and eggs instead of taking care of cattle and poultry”, said another Krishi Bhavan official.
Food safety officials busy checking samples
With festival season round the corner, food safety officials are collecting vegetable samples from various check-posts. Already samples from Amaravila and Malappuram have reached the Pesticide Residue Research and Analytical Laboratory at College of Agriculture, Vellayani. The level of pesticide residues will be known only after Vishu though. The officials feel that usually Vishu is celebrated with much pomp in the Malabar region rather than in the southern districts. Hence they are expecting more statutory samples to arrive from Malabar in the coming days.
Despite 76 new Food Safety Officers being recruited last week, the department is still facing a shortage of hands in their labs. There are 36 lab staff members working in their five testing sections – tea and coffee, milk, water, oil and confectionery. A top official told DC that an additional 15 posts have to be created in the lab with a large number of statutory sample reaching them from across the state. “We have already decided to recommend to the government to create 15 more posts in the food safety lab." he said.
"At present, we are taking more than 400 additional statutory samples for checking with the remaining surveillance samples going to the Vellayani lab.” The lab is also facing the same issue of undertaking more tests than its equipment can handle. A Kerala Agriculture University official told DC that agriculture department itself is sending a minimum of 120 samples for pesticide residue testing when the actual load of the machine is 150 kilo (150 samples). KAU has already written to Food Safety Commissioner Navjot Khosa.
