India leads move on pesticides in tea

KOLKATA: Even as you sip your daily cup of tea, there’s a huge exercise in global markets to make the world’s most consumed beverage more drinkable, more quality driven and in line with “realistic” MRL (maximum residue levels) and ISO 3720 standards. And what brings more cheer per cup is that India, one of the largest producers of tea, is taking the lead in generating data on pesticide residues in tea for all countries as part of the inter-governmental group (IGG) under the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The huge task of addressing quality across tea producing and consuming countries is also part of IGG’s initiatives to highlight the persistent problems of oversupply of tea in the world markets and the consequent downward pressure on world prices. The IGG, in a recent meeting in Nairobi, suggested that the global tea fraternity should consider imposing a minimum quality standard for entering international trade.

“Certain EU countries had adopted very stringent quality standards for importing tea. India and UK have been asked to co-lead the working group to coordinate, prioritise and accelerate the process of fixing the MRL according to realistic standards, which are based on field and toxicity data,” Dr T C Chaudhuri, coordinator, working group on pesticides, IGG told DNA Money.

The IGG has recommended that the entire exercise would entail exchange of information and data of the producing and consuming countries as well as other stakeholders like Codex Alimentarius, which sets technical and scientific standards for quality in food items and is now the technical arm of the WTO, the European Commission and other standard setting bodies.