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Barely six months after Russia lifted a ban on import of rice and peanut from India on grounds of contamination, Australia has warned India of violation of laws governing processed food exports to the country.
An advisory by the department of agriculture, Australia, has been issued and circulated through APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority), that Indian exporters involved in the exports of processed food products especially, containing milk, have not been following the relevant regulation of imports into Australia, after detection of cases violating the import regulations.
In tandem, India's food exports to Australia fell by 17% in value (from Rs 556 crore to Rs 458 crore) and nearly 12% quantity (from 57,877 MT to 5,1077 MT) in one year's time between April and November2012-13 and 2013-14, according to data from APEDA. Last year, India exported 460 metric tonne of dairy products to Australia (between April-November2012-13), which came down to 327 MT to same period this year.
One of the key reasons for rejections has been the new food labeling law and policy in Australia. In 2011, the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council together with the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) commissioned an independent review of Food Labelling Law and Policy. The review made 61 recommendations covering a wide range of food labeling issues.
"Rejection Australia has upgraded its import norms for foodproducts, and thus most of the rejections are on account of issues like packaging," said P C Sunish, partner, Arul Appalam Depot, a processed food exporter to Australia.
Notably, last year, much of the food exports to Australia were driven by guar gum boom, but the slump this year in guar gum had been largely compensated by higher Basmati rice exports from India. This apart, non-adherence to safety standards, especially labeling, has been one of key reasons for largenumber of refusals for Indian products in other markets as well.
For example, Indian food products are in the top of refusal lists at the US FDA (Food & Drug administration),mostly on the ground of being adulterated and misbranded. In the month of January alone, India faced the highest number of rejections, about 236, according to the monthly refusal list issued by the Operational and Administrative System for Import Support (OASIS), of the US FDA. A large number of products in the list are either processed food, followed by pharmaceutical products.
