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Pakistan has been dealing with concerns of ensuring a sufficient food supply to satisfy the rising dietary requirements of its rapidly booming population and protecting community health by reducing risks associated with food manufacturing, processing, and food storage. The country’s food system is fragmented and ineffective, leaving critical gaps in food safety and quality assurance.
Maintaining and expanding agricultural food exports in Pakistan also necessitates food safety measures as a preliminary requirement. Pakistan is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and has signed various global, domestic, and bilateral trade agreements that necessitate sanitary and phyto-sanitary approaches to safeguard human, plant, and animal health. Notably, over the past few years, we have experienced a huge number of rejected export shipments and export limitations due to food safety concerns.
Agricultural practices that are outdated and having lack of regulations are a significant cause of contamination from biological hazards, including bacteria, worms, fungus, insects, agricultural pests, synthetic chemical residues, heavy metals, stones, plastic material and glass hazards that affect plant throughout the production, harvesting, and processing stages. The problems arise from the haphazard application of pesticides, which frequently employs the use of unauthorized synthetic chemicals in excessive amounts.
In the meanwhile, food regulatory bodies oversee the downwards distribution of the food supply chain, encompassing food production, wholesale supply, and food retail outlet. Their priority is aimed at ensuring the hygiene and cleanliness of food, preventing the tampering, and maintaining the quality of the recipe ingredients, preservatives, and colors utilized by food service industries.
The world is undergoing rapid changes, with nations tightening their food safety regulations at an accelerated pace. In an increasingly dynamic international environment, Pakistan’s long-standing agricultural systems have become outdated and required upgradation to reduce food safety risks in agricultural production. If these practices are not improved, the country may lag behind in international trade and potentially harm public health.
Importantly, countries across the globe are embracing Global Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), a regulatory structure designed to mitigate food safety risks, encourage judicious pesticides application, guarantee environmental and eco-friendly farming methods. Most of our farms do not have the technical and financial capabilities to fully implement the Global GAP standards. Many of its methods can be applied with minimal financial outcomes. It is overdue for the government to identify and actively encourage a range of on-farm practices that may significantly improve the food safety of agricultural products.
In agricultural settings, primary concerns regarding food safety originate from the uninhibited use of synthetic chemicals, typically involving excessive and unregistered applications of synthetic chemicals in unnecessary quantities. Farmers often lack knowledge of prime factors like accurate pest recognition, the minimum pest population that warrants action, the best time to apply pesticides, the optimal pressure for spray equipment, the selection of right nozzle, and the ideal droplet size. The original intention of agricultural extension services as a public service has been compromised by a supply-driven delivery model that is flawed in both its design and implementation, ultimately leading to ineffectiveness.
Farmers are generally uninformed about the pre-harvest intervals of various pesticides, leading to non-compliance with exceeded residue limits, which are the acceptable levels of chemical residues set by exporting countries. Earlier, the government implemented a half-hearted initiative to foster integrated pest management (IPM), a comprehensive mechanism that combines biological, chemical, cultural and physical techniques for controlling pests. In various countries, the strategy has been successfully executed; however, its implementation in Pakistan has been inefficient due to limited financial resources and a lack of comprehensive mechanism. Consequently, even landholders who were eager to participate had difficulty with a limited supply of crucial IPM materials, including insect pheromones, mechanical traps, natural predators and so forth.
Low-performing government agricultural extension and advisory services are also a major reason for the excessive use of pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides. Agricultural extension was originally viewed as a public service; however, its delivery approach was based on supply rather than demand, and was hindered by numerous conceptual, design, and operational shortcomings. Therefore, its impact and scope have remained restricted.
The space created in this area has been filled by pesticide companies, which employ a large number of field teams. Government extension agents are often preoccupied with tasks unrelated to their work, whereas technical experts with the necessary qualifications interact with farmers much more regularly. The companies actively pursue aggressive marketing strategies to boost their sales’ figures.
Additionally, the sale of pesticides by dealers, often on credit with high profit margins, encourages the overuse of synthetic chemicals, including those who are even not approved for use. As a consequence, farmers depend entirely on pesticide use, disregarding other methods for managing pests and disease.
In the current circumstances, a comprehensive food control system for agricultural farms must be established, incorporating both regulatory and non-regulatory methods to guarantee the production of safe foods that comply with international standards.
The effectiveness of real world initiatives depends on initially improving farmers’ skills and knowledge, followed by providing them with the necessary equipment and support. In short, Pakistan’s fiscal policy is severely limited, necessitating the government to find a middle ground between massive infrastructure projects typically easier to execute via national and international bidding processes and projects mainly aimed at enhancing agricultural exports, public health, and environmental sustainability, all of which have a direct and lasting effect on people’s subjective well-being.
(Manan Aslam is affiliated with the School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P. R. China& Department of Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship Development, MNS-University of Agriculture, Multan, Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Imran is affiliated with Department of Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship De velopment, MNS-University of Agriculture, Multan, Pakistan and Mudassar Yasin is affiliated with Department of Agri. Extension, MNS-University of Agriculture, Multan, Pakistan)
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