Food safety officials are not conducive to the motivation of using banned chemicals to mature fruits
Vijayawada: Given that the use of banned calcium carbide and ethylene exceeds the permissible limits, and the use of ethylene to ripen fruits, especially mangoes and bananas, food safety authorities have begun firing drives to curb such illegal practices in the AP.
A team of officials from the Food Safety Department has begun visiting wholesale markets and refrigeration facilities to collect fruit samples and inspect chemicals used in ripe fruits and their quantum.
The practice of using chemicals to ripe mangoes and bananas has been popular for some time. However, given the huge demand for fruit in summer, a number of farmers and traders are putting banned calcium carbide bags in fruit collections to quickly get familiar with the fruit manually so that they can be sold.
Similarly, mangoes and bananas are placed in the vinyl chamber at the storage point. Although 100 ppm of ethylene is allowed, a portion of farmers are using ethylene beyond this limit to ripen fruits and make more money.
In addition, there are reports that farmers use ethylene salts in diluted form as liquids. Spray this liquid onto the fruit for rapid ripening. Some farmers even dipped a bunch of bananas in the diluted Ethephon. A portion of fruit consumers accused the chemicals of being infused into the watermelon to ensure the color inside is red and attractive. Food safety authorities have ruled out such practices, saying watermelon does not accept any foreign materials in it.
Officials in the stakeholder sector also engage in awareness-driven between farmers and traders to avoid using chemicals for artificially ripe fruit. People who eat this type of fruit develop intestinal diseases. In some cases, they may even cause cancer.
“We are inspecting wholesale fruit markets and storage facilities. If farmers and traders are found guilty of using prohibited chemicals to ripen their ripe fruits, we will act in accordance with the norms,” ​​said N. Poornachandra Rao, joint food safety controller.
