Logo of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
Credit: X/@fssaiindia
Bengaluru: The Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA-Kisan Swaraj) has urged the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to drop its proposal to revoke relaxations for original organic producers and aggregators selling directly to customers in using the organic logo.
In an open letter to the FSSAI chairperson, Sreedevi Lakshmikutty of ASHA said the May 7 discussions suggested removing these exemptions.
"It appears the FSSAI wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater in tackling 'fake organic' as a priority, though this is a misbranding issue, not one of food safety," the letter stated.
Noting that fake organic products are no more unsafe than those grown with agrochemicals, the representation — signed by 131 people — said that stakeholders had fought for years to secure the exemptions.
"We wanted to help Indian agriculture shift towards safe food from agroecological practices and ensure small food operators are not crushed under impossible compliance norms," it said.
The activists flagged a parallel FSSAI proposal to remove Regulation 4(1)(iii) of the FSS (Organic Foods) Regulations, which would end scope for standards beyond the two existing ones. They urged FSSAI to notify other certification systems.
ASHA also criticised the FSSAI for questioning the Ministry of Agriculture’s PGS-India certification regime. "The FSSAI’s mandate is food safety, while organic farming addresses environmental, ecological and livelihood issues. The problem of fake organic cannot dictate India’s entire organic farming policy," it said.