Poison on our plates

The government must ensure that fruit and vegetable imports are free of hazardous pesticide residues.

When it comes to food safety in Nepal, two realities are pretty well established: The fruits and vegetables we consume, be they imported or homegrown, contain high pesticide residues; and the government, desperate to fulfil the ever-increasing demand, has hardly the willpower or the infrastructure to conduct tests to ensure that the fresh produce we consume is free of contaminants. To be fair to the government, it did make efforts, through a Cabinet decision in June last year, to quarantine and conduct pesticide residue tests for agriculture produce imported from India. But the decision was ill-thought-out and its implementation chaotic. The government soon revoked its decision, thanks partly to its own inefficacy and partly to pressure from the Embassy of India in Kathmandu. That was the last we heard from the government about its plans to ensure that the food we eat is edible.