No arsenic in local rice

Indunil HEWAGE

Media reports on arsenic in locally produced rice has become a hot topic in Sri Lanka with contradictory ideas and arguments between the government and researchers.

Brushing aside the finding of the researches who came up with this idea, the government, Industrial Technology Institute (ITI) and other related institutions informed that there is no arsenic in locally produced rice.

The government expressed its willingness to promote Sri Lanka as self-sufficient and toxicity free country.

Speaking to Daily News Business, Croplife Sri Lanka Safe Use Sub-Committee, Chairman Rohitha Nanayakkara said the government and the Agriculture Ministry, ITI, Registrar of Pesticides and other related industries have clearly mentioned that there is no arsenic in locally produced rice.

The ITI has conducted a research using the same 28 pesticides the researchers used to ascertain the arsenic level in rice.

Accordingly, out of the 28 pesticides, ITI has found minor quantities of arsenic in two products that is in part per billion level.

"Researches emphasize, there should not be any arsenic in pesticide imported to Sri Lanka under the 2001 gazette notification. As a responsible institution, we agree with their suggestion. There cannot be arsenic in the active ingredient of pesticides.

As a responsible organization, we need to inform the foreign suppliers about this situation. We informed the researchers to provide us the legal and scientific details of the findings, particularly research protocol and the method that they have used to measure quantities of arsenic in rice.

According to our knowledge, researchers have not submitted a single document to our organization or to the Registrar of Pesticides yet. What they have published is the names of 28 pesticides they have used for the research," Nanayakkara said.

This can become a national issue and will affect the agricultural productivity and national economy to a great extent. This serious finding should be discussed further with the relevant authorities in the agriculture industry before disclosing the final findings of the research to the media. If something happens, what is the answer? It can be a big problem to Sri Lanka's image," Nanayakkara said.

These chemicals are not only used in rice production but also are being used for Sri Lanka's main export crops, tea, vegetables and other crops, if something goes wrong with these confusing reports, it will affect the national economy and agriculture productivity to a great extent.

All pesticides in the world are manufactured under the guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and are widely being used in the world. Nanayakkara questions the validity of the finding of the researchers since this research is not published and the research is still ongoing. Without going to a scientific forum with their research finding, or without comparing the researchers' finding with the final results issued by the government research institutions pertaining to the arsenic matter, how can they come up with this serious accusation, Nanayakkara asks.

According to a notification issued by the Sri Lanka Standards Institute, there are 32 food items with permissible levels of arsenic in Sri Lanka. According to Sri Lanka standards, canned fish, beer, ice cream, margarine, chocolate, jams, tomato juice, fruit juice, pickles and other food items contain arsenic in part per million level.

According to WHO provisions, high toxic pesticides comes under Class 1A and Class 1B.Sri Lanka does not have a single pesticide that comes under Class 1A and Class 1B which are most toxic to human and environment, whereas Pakistan, India and China are still using these pesticides. In addition, every chemical packing includes a colour band, which is used to determine the toxicity of the chemicals. If there is a chemical with a red band, it means that it is of high toxicity. However, Sri Lanka does not have any single pesticide that comes with a red band.

In addition, all pesticide consignments imported to Sri Lanka are tested by the Registrar of Pesticides on active ingredients and stability of chemicals. Relevant authorities in the industry reiterate that they are within the legal framework and follow the 1983 Pesticide Act No 33.

There is a rumour going around that there are detained consignments by the Sri Lankan Customs in the port and media said that researchers have tested samples taken by the Customs. Once again, samples taken by customs were rechecked at the Kelaniya University laboratory with the assistance of the same researchers who came up with first arsenic research. We expressed our objection on the above research for two reasons. This is not an ethical research and the Kelaniya University laboratory is not a fully equipped laboratory that follows internationally accredited good laboratory practices," he said.

"In addition, the registration process of pesticides is a tough one and if we want to introduce a new pesticide to Sri Lanka, it will take at least three years to get the approval due to the stringent testing process carried out to ascertain the suitability of the product to the Sri Lankan market," he said.

In the world scenario, the pharmaceutical industry is the number one industry that spends a large sum of money to conduct research and development activities and the pesticide industry would be the second industry that allocates substantial money for research and development activities. According to Nanayakkara, it takes more than 10 years to find out one pesticide molecule which is suitable for market and it is selected after experimenting with more than 1000 pesticide molecules.