The need for safe food during the holy month of Ramadan was very rightly highlighted at its very outset by the country's responsible business circles including their apex body, the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI). The government agencies have been more active this year than before to help check adulteration of foods. However, in view of the growlingly menacing dimension of the problem, the actions should have been more extensive through better coordination and intensive field-level supervision, focusing more on substance and less on publicity itself. Meanwhile, the minister of food announced the other day that the government would ensure adulteration-free food in the country within next one or two years. This would otherwise be considered too tough a commitment by a very important functionary of the government to redeem, given the prevailing state of affairs about the problem-ridden governance-related institutions. Talking the talk is easier than walking the walk.
There is no denying that food adulteration and contamination pose a serious threat to public health. This is more so for countries like Bangladesh where the level of awareness among the masses about the problem itself is quite low. A national food control system is largely absent in Bangladesh. Nearly two-thirds of the total food items, according to a recent survey, hit markets without any quality check. Earlier studies conducted by the Institute of Public Health found that about 60 per cent of the samples of more than 50 different food items that were tested, were adulterated or contaminated ones. Mixing of lower quality and some dangerous ingredients is adulteration while adding wide-ranging harmful toxic chemicals is contamination. Both are widely practised in the country.
The situation about food safety in Bangladesh has thus continued to cause alarm largely because of lax enforcement of rules and regulations as well as some built-in flaws therein. The Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI), the sole quality certification authority in the country, is, to cite here an example, mandated to monitor only 60 packaged items. Rules do not permit it to check any unpackaged food items such as fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. The supplies of foods in the domestic markets have become awfully dangerous in many cases for a variety of reasons. Four major ones can be noted here. These include growers' general unawareness about the consequences of use of chemicals, middlemen's mindless greed for money, sellers' trick to increase fresh-look and shelf-life, and the government's lack of effective will to ensure safe food for all. All such factors must be addressed simultaneously, if the government really means business about its promise to ensure food safety to the people at large.
There are already several pieces of legislation in existence in the country to deal with food safety. But their enforcement remains weak and flawed on many counts. It is here that the government has to take actions in earnest at the first place to help move things in the right sequential order. In tandem with this, concerted endeavours by the city corporations, municipalities, district administrators and local bodies are critically important to help create public awareness on a wider scale about this pressing issue of consequence. Steps like holding of regular discussions and review meetings at diffident tiers of the administration can contribute to forging a synergy where the demand-driven conditions will prod all concerned to actions about ensuring supplies of 'safe food' in the market. Drastic measures against food adulteration brook no delay to save all -- existing, new and future generations.
