Safe Food Act: Unsafe foodstuffs to feed

Consuming safe food is one of the fundamental rights for the citizens of Bangladesh. But the right is being denied widely by unscrupulous traders as they are still selling foodstuffs laced with toxins for their petty financial interests.
The heinous and insensible acts of such crooked traders are throwing the consumers, especially the new generation, into multiple risks. Deadly diseases are caused mainly due to taking substandard and chemicals-mixed food, physicians say.
For the menacing act of food adulteration, food safety has become a burning issue in Bangladesh. Unbridled food adulteration and use of toxic chemicals to preserve fruits, vegetables and fishes, compounded by lack of deterrent action from the government, have put public health in jeopardy.
Various types of toxic chemicals are being used on all kinds of food items to ripen them or keep them fresh. This mindless mischief is being likened to 'slow poisoning' people to death.  
There are not sufficient national standards to measure food safety, neither is there an effective institutional mechanism to enforce food safety at different tiers in the food chain.
Food adulteration and chemical contamination of foodstuffs are assumed to have reached an alarming stage in the country. It compelled the government to enact a law in order to save the nation from the perils of public health hazards.
A study by Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) in September 2010 revealed that use of toxic chemicals in agriculture had increased six times over a decade.
As per the data of Bangladesh Kidney Foundation, some 16 per cent of country's people suffer from renal diseases because of food adulteration.
Due to taking adulterated food the number of patients suffering from cancer, kidney and liver complications is increasing day by day. In 2012, the number of cancer patients was 232,456 and it jumped to 476,265 in 2013, according to a leading non-government organisation in the country.
Every year 4.5 million people in the country fall to suffer different diseases due to food adulteration, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
And, after much anticipation, the government has enacted the Safe Food Act 2013 for punishment of the food fakers and also safety of public health.
The law has the provision of maximum five years' imprisonment and a fine of Tk 1 million for food adulteration.
The law provides for different other penalties like two-year imprisonment for making false claims about food items in advertisements, and three years for selling food products by people with contagious diseases.
It (the law) has the provision for doubling the penalty if offences related to food adulteration were repeated. Mobile and penal courts would be authorised to try food-related crimes under 22 categories and to award sentences ranging from jail terms to fines.
The Safe Food Act has also the provision of creating Bangladesh Safe Food Authority (BSFA) to ensure a coordinated approach to make all relevant ministries to work together.
The act has another provision of establishing National Safe Food Management Advisory Council (NSFMAC) which will be chaired by the Food Minister and the food secretary will act as its member-secretary.
Up till now, the government neither has appointed a chairman to the (BSFA) though the government already published the rules of Safe Food Act through a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) on October 29, 2014.   
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As the BSFA is yet to come into being, the unscrupulous traders are carrying on their unethical practices of mixing chemicals with foods unhindered, thereby endangering people's life.
After all this, the Safe Food Act is yet to be enforced as there is a provision to form BSFA that will supervise the main task to ensure food safety with the cooperation from 13 ministries and departments concerned.
And until the formation of the BSFA, the implementation of the Safe Food Act is not possible.
The BSFA is to help coordinate consumer-protection activities across the food-control system.
In view of the urgency, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Food (MoF) in setting up the authority.
The government is yet to select a chairman for the BSFA. The MoF has sent the names to the Ministry of Public Administration (MoPA) for approval for appointing four members to the BSFA.   
The Safe Food Act has also the provision of forming National Safe Food Management Advisory Council, headed by the Food Minister, to give directions to the authorities.
Under its comprehensive provision, there would be a technical committee and an expert panel to ensure safe food quality.
The country now follows the outmoded Pure Food Ordinance 1959 which covers only eight food commodities and practically is not effective in dealing with such horrendous spread of food adulteration.
The five-decade-old ordinance, which is still in effect, has provisions for a paltry fine of Tk 5,000 or jail terms for two to three months for food adulterers.
In keeping with the situation back then, the ordinance covered only eight food commodities. Now, The Safe Food Act 2013 deals with over 200 food commodities.
Chairman of Bangladesh Law Commission (BLC) and former Chief Justice A B M Khairul Haque said that people move slowly towards death by taking adulterated food.
"There is no difference between sudden murders and the deaths caused by slow poisoning through food adulteration. Both are punishable crimes," Justice Haque said in his judicious view of the evil.
The former chief justice said there are many good laws in the country but no law is effectively enforced to check the crime--food adulteration.
"Visible legal actions should be taken against the food adulterators to stop it," he said, and suggested that the government take stern action so that none could dare to get involved in food-adulteration process.
Chairman of Bangladesh Human Rights Commission Dr Mizanur Rahman said those involved in food adulteration are powerful and influential. He suggested bringing to justice the masterminds of mixing toxic chemicals and harmful substances with food.
Besides, there should be some initiatives to control the availability of toxic pesticides which are banned but are still produced in neighbouring countries.
"We should educate farmers in using agro-chemicals and to move towards less-toxic alternatives. They (farmers) should look for the most convenient or cheapest means of controlling pest or disease."
This should start in the major fruit-and vegetable-producing areas.  More work is needed to understand what advice farmers are being given and what chemicals they are using and wherefrom they are getting them.
It is good news for us that the US and some other countries have assured Bangladesh of providing support in implementing the newly enacted Safe Food Act 2013 with a view to curbing food adulteration and chemical contamination in food to protect public health.
We the consumers as a whole urge the government to enforce the Safe Food Act strictly to ensure public health. We also call upon the government to enact the Formalin Control Act 2014 in parliament as early as possible, considering public interest.
We also suggest the government to conduct trial of the offenders under Special Tribunal of the Safe Food Act 2013. To ensure safe food the government should take legal action against those responsible for mixing chemicals with fruits, implementing the existing laws strictly and sincerely by the government officials against food adulteration, allowing the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) alone to import formalin and setting up food courts in all upazila and districts.
There are a number of laws in the country, but many of them are not properly enforced.
Several government ministries and departments have the responsibilities to protect the consumers' interests through educating the producers to produce safer food and by testing samples, by prosecuting cases where unsafe food is being sold.
We must give emphasis on implementation of the newly enacted Safe Food Act 2013 so that people can derive the benefits of the laws.
But this also requires the political will across government to support the authority, and the commitment to devote sufficient public resources to making it operational in the longer term.

The writer is FE Staff Reporter. He can be reached at: [email protected]