India must strengthen its food safety system and ensure foreign regulations are not used as disguised trade barriers, especially with the India-EU trade pact nearing implementation, economic think tank GTRI’s report said.
The Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) warned that in the absence of the system, India risks opening its market further to European food products while continuing to see its own agricultural exports rejected at European borders.
In January, India and the 27-nation European Union (EU) announced conclusion of a free trade agreement (FTA). It is likely to be signed by the end of this year and may come into force next year.
“With the India-EU FTA nearing implementation, India cannot afford to remain weak on both fronts. It must strengthen its own food-safety system while ensuring that foreign regulations are not used as disguised restrictions on Indian exports,” the report prepared by GTRI Founder Ajay Srivastava and Shantwna Dixit from the Centre for Environment and Agriculture said.
It suggested a modern, science-based and reciprocal food-safety system for protecting consumers, supporting farmers and securing India’s long-term agricultural export competitiveness.
The report said the country should build a world-class domestic food-safety system through farm-to-port traceability, stronger guidance on pesticide use, more internationally accredited laboratories/ stronger Indian originated accreditation system, routine residue monitoring and stronger enforcement by FSSAI, customs and plant and animal quarantine authorities.
India should inspect imported food with the same rigour that Indian exports face abroad, it said adding imported consignments should undergo risk-based sampling and laboratory testing, and shipments failing Indian standards should be rejected.
It also recommended setting up of a dedicated Food-Safety Monitoring and Response Cell to track regulatory changes in export markets, provide early warnings to exporters and assist them in meeting evolving compliance requirements.
Citing example of China, the report said between 2013 and 2019, Chinese authorities rejected or returned an average of 740 European Union food consignments every year for food-safety violations.
China demonstrated that rigorous import enforcement can coexist with robust international trade and India should adopt a similarly science-based inspection regime, Srivastava said.
He added that the EU has issued 365 food-safety notifications against Indian products, leading to border rejections, recalls, destruction of consignments and tighter inspections.
“EU pesticide use averages 2.67 kg per hectare-over 11 times India’s 0.24 kg- yet imported food receives relatively limited testing in India,” he said adding lower tariffs under the trade pact will mean little if Indian farm exports continue to face restrictive EU food-safety barriers.
