Leading Indian grape exporter Euro Fruits has sent an open letter EU member states' food safety authorities asking them to temporarily increase their Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) for Chlormequat chloride to save “the body and soul” of the industry.
With the future of India’s grape campaign in jeopardy after the discovery of Chlormequat resides in grapes supplied to Lidl in Sweden, the Mumbai-based company has appealed to European countries to raise MRLs to safeguard its future.
In the letter, Euro Fruits said: “The Indian table grapes industry has had a successful presence in European markets for about the past 20 years.
“During the past 20 days, the very existence of this industry with over 3,500 containers destined for European markets and the livelihoods of about 1.2m small holder farmers, farm labourers and exporters has come in question with the very survival (sic.) at stake.”
The company said that as a result of the “no dormancy condition” for vineyards in India, Indian farmers have been using Chlormequat as a plant growth regulator “for years”.
In the letter, released by Euro Fruits’ managing director Nitin Agrawal, the exporter claimed that “almost by accident and perhaps for the first time in 20 years”, residue tests were conducted in Europe on Indian grapes for Chlormequat and detections higher than the EU MRL of 0.05ppm were detected in many samples.
Following an urgent request from the European Commission (EC), the European Food Safety Association (EFSA) published a statement last week on the risks to public health related to the presence of Chlormequat residues in table grapes originating from India.
The EFSA concluded that if the concentration of the chemical on grapes did not exceed 1.06mg per kg of fruit, it was not likely to pose a short-term risk for public health.
The EC has now left the compliance to individual member states in the light of the EFSA opinion and based on legal provisions contained in Paragraph 4 of Article 18 in EU MRL regulation 396/2005 for setting temporary national MRL’s in exceptional circumstances.
In its letter, Euro Fruits said it was seeking to “humbly appeal and request all food safety authorities of European member states to take a pragmatic view of the matter” and set the national temporary MRL at 1.06mg per kg level for Chlormequat on Indian grapes to “save the body and soul of our industry”.
“We sincerely believe such an initiative has more than adequate technical, legal, commercial, public health policy, social and bilateral trade justification and to do otherwise is like signing a death warrant on the million odd stakeholders in the supply chain because of a mere compliance/regulatory issue,” the company added.
According to industry association Freshfel Europe, the issue at hand hasbeen caused not by the fruit exceeding safety limits and placing consumers at risk, but rather an oversight in terms of the rules currently in place for regulating pesticide residues.
Contrary to a press report in India's Business Standard, which was last week repeated by a number of fresh produce industry websites, EU authorities and individual member states have not halted any containers of table grapes from India.
'However,' Philippe Binard, general secretary of Freshfel Europe, said last week, 'routine samples taken at trade level in recent days reported that some consignments had traces above the detection level 0.05ppm without however exceeding any threshold level which could expose European consumers to risk.'
