With the changes in agriculture related laws, farmer and buyers/exporters are expected to reach national markets and hence need to take fast purchase decision. One of the important quality criteria for export related commodities purchases are pesticide residues and toxins. Currently, buyers/exporters are largely using the services of nationally reputed labs to get results for this business. In case of lower MRLs or strict destination country regulations like EU, samples are also sent for testing at reputed international labs like Eurofins.
With the ongoing changes in regulatory and business landscapes, the transaction time – buyer taking the sample from farmer and deciding to buy the produce, need considerable reduction so that farmers have more options to sell their produce to different buyers as per the quality of produce.
One of the critical factor which can reduce this transaction time is by reducing the sample transportation and analytical testing time. With the mobile residue monitoring lab near major mandi/farm area, it can reduce the turnaround time by more than 50% and facilitate faster trade.
The mobile pesticide residues monitoring lab will be equipped with highly sophisticated instruments like LCMSMS, GCMSMS with capacity to test 500+ pesticide residues and screen Aflatoxins andOchratoxins in commodities. The lab will focus on major export commodities – Basmati Rice, Cumin, Chilli, Soya, to help farmers evaluate quality of their export worthy produce in shortest time.
It will offer benefits to the farmers by providing services at their doorstep where the mobile lab will be stationed near mandi area to help farmers test their crop in shortest possible time without shipping samples to any other city.
Moreover, crops can be tested for 500 plus pesticide residues. Hence farmer can evaluate quickly if it meets the export requirements and get better selling price. It will also provide them with wider scope where they can test other contaminants like Aflatoxins and Ochratoxins as well. Adding on to the list of benefits, the mobile lab will give faster turnaround time compared to other conventional labs.
M. Angamuthu, Chairman of APEDA,said, “Eurofins came up with mobile lab to acutely empower the farmers by reducing the TAT (Turn Around Time) that is consequently aimed at increasing the export capacity of India.”
Therefore, there is immense need for innovative technologies which can FastTrack process in analysing the quality of the agri-produce and enable the traders and exporters to take faster decisions. Against this backdrop, the mobile lab will promote more innovative solutions in maintaining quality of the export products and domestic trade in Agri commodities. Lab will travel across country helping farmers and exporters with reliable, accurate and faster analysis at farm level..
